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XJNIV 


OP  THE 


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GOETHE   IN   AGE. 


From  the  bust  by  Ranch  about  1820. 


THE 


LIFE    AND    GENIUS 


OF 


GOETHE 

LECTURES    AT    THE     CONCORD    SCHOOL 
OF    PHILOSOPHY 

EDITED    BY 

F.    B.     SANBORN 


BOSTON 

TICKNOR    AND     COMPANY 

1886 


Copyright,  1885, 
By  Ticknor  and  Company. 


All  rights  reserved. 


CSnibftaita  1P«2b: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


-. I 


CONTENTS. 


PORTRAITS. 

Goethe  in  Age.     From  Raucli's  Bust     .    .    .     Frontispiece. 
Goethe  IN  Youth Tofacep.l 

Page 
Introduction.  —  The  Goethe  Society  and  the  Goethe 
Archives.  —  Bibliography  of  Goethe's  Works,  of 
Works  on  Goethe,  and  of  Papers  on  Goethe  — 

The  Concord  School V 

I.   Goethe's  Youth.     Prof.  H.  S.  White    ....  1 

II.   Goethe's  Self-Culture.    John  Alhee   ....  37 

III.  Goethe's  Titanism.     Thomas  Davidson  ....  68 

IV.  Goethe  and  Schiller.    Rev.  G.  A.  Bartol     .    .  107 

V.   Goethe's  Marchen.     Rev.  F.  H.  Hedge      .     .     .  135 

VI.  Goethe's  Relation    to   English  Literature. 

F.  B.  Sanborn 157 

VII.  Goethe    as    a  Playwright.     TFilliam  Ordivay 

Partridge 189 

VIII.  Das  Ewig-Weibliche.     Mrs.  E.  D.  Cheney    ,     .  218 

IX.   The  Elective  Affinities.     S.  H.  Emery,  Jr.    .  251 

X.   Child  Life  as  portrayed  by  Goethe.    Mrs. 

Caroline  K.  Sherman 290 


IV  CONTENTS. 

XI.  History  op  the  Faust  Poem.    Denton  J.  Snider  313 

XII.  Goethk's  "Women.    Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe   .    .  345 

XIII.  Goethe's  Faust.     W.  T.  Harris 368 


INDEX 447 


-^. 


INTEODUCTION. 


The  Lectures  on  Goethe  here  printed  are  not  the 
whole  of  those  delivered  at  the  School  of  Philosophy 
in  July,  1885  ;  for  several  of  the  lecturers  have  either 
published  their  essays  elsewhere,  or  withhold  them 
for  other  uses.  Much  also  tha^t  was  said  in  the  con- 
versations which  followed  the  Lectures,  and  which 
threw  light  on  the  text  as  here  printed,  is  necessarily 
omitted ;  although  the  lecturers,  in  revising  their 
manuscripts,  have  sometimes  included  remarks  that 
were  thus  made.  Mr.  Alcott,  the  founder  of  the 
School,  although  several  times  present  during  these 
sessions,  (as  he  had  not  been  since  1882,)  was  unable 
to  make  his  comments  in  the  conversations ;  and 
therefore  some  passages  from  his  Diaries  have  been 
inserted  in  the  lecture  of  Mr.  Sanborn.  On  the 
other  hand,  Mr.  Snider  and  other  lecturers  have 
omitted,  in  revision,  some  of  the  comments  made  in 
the  spoken  lectures. 

Professor  Hewett,  of  Cornell  University,  whose 
lecture  on  "  Goethe  in  Weimar,"  expanded,  wiU  form 
part  of  a  series  on  the  "  Homes  of  the  German  Poets  " 


Vi  INTRODUCTION. 

in  Harper's  Magazine,  and  is  not  available  for  this 
volume,  has  kindly  furnished  for  this  Introduction  an 
account  of  the  newly  discovered  Goethe  manuscripts 
which  were  mentioned  in  his  lecture.  It  is  based  on 
the  reports  of  Professor  Geiger  and  Dr.  Brahm,  and 
is  as  follows. 

THE  GOETHE  SOCIETY  AND  THE  GOETHE 
ARCHIVES. 

Walther  von  Goethe,  Chamberlain  of  the  Grand  Duke  of 
Saxe-Weimar,  and  the  last  descendant  of  the  poet,  died  in 
Leipzig,  April  15,  1885.  By  his  will  he  bequeathed  the 
Goethe  house,  its  art  and  scientific  collections,  to  the  Grand 
Duke  ;  its  literary  treasures  were  left  to  the  Grand  Duchess 
Sophie,  a  princess  of  the  house  of  Orange,  whose  intelligence 
and  interest  in  literature  make  her  a  worthy  successor  of  the 
Duchess  Amalia.  On  the  9th  of  June  a  call  was  issued,  in- 
viting all  friends  of  Goethe  literature  to  unite  in  the  formation 
of  a  Goethe  Society  in  Weimar.  The  meeting  was  held  on 
June  20  and  21,  in  the  guild  house  of  the  Crossbowmen,  an 
organization  of  which  the  poet  was  a  member.  More  than  one 
hundred  eminent  scholars  and  university  professors  assembled 
from  all  parts  of  Germany  and  Austria  to  do  honor  to  the  poet. 
The  Goethe  archives,  which  had  been  so  long  the  object  of 
ardent  interest  to  all  scholars,  had  at  last  been  opened,  and 
the  results  of  the  investigation  were  to  be  made  known.  The 
Society  was  constituted  with  a  long  list  of  active  members, 
including  the  Empress  of  Germany,  the  granddaughter  of  Carl 
August,  the  Princes  and  the  Grand  Duchess  of  Saxe-Weimar, 
the  Princes  of  Reuss-Gera,  of  Meiningen,  and  of  Saxony  ;  the 
Ministers  Von  Gossler  of  Berlin,  Von  Gerber  of  Dresden,  and 
numerous  foreign  scholars  of  Naples,  Rome,  Athens,  and 
America.     The  Grand  Duke  Carl  Alexander  of  Saxe-Weimar 


INTRODUCTION.  VU 

accepted  the  office  of  patron  of  the  society.  Dr.  Simson,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Imperial  Court  of  Leipzig,  formerly  President  of 
the  German  Parliament,  was  chosen  the  first  President.  The 
Executive  Committee  consists  of  Professor  W.  Scherer  of  Berlin, 
First  Vice-President ;  General-Intendant  Von  Loen  of  Weimar, 
Second  Vice-President ;  Professor  Kuno  Fischer  of  Heidelberg ; 
Paul  Heyse,  the  novelist,  of  Munich  ;  Von  Loeper  of  Berlin  ; 
Von  Beaulieu-Marconnay  of  Dresden;  Eumelin,  Chancellor 
of  the  University  of  Tubingen,  of  Stuttgart ;  Professor  Erich 
Schmidt  of  Vienna;  Eggeling,  Curator  of  the  University  of 
Jena;  and  Ruland  of  "Weimar.  A  business  board  was  also 
selected.  Herr  Commerzienrath  Moritz  was  appointed  Treas- 
urer of  the  Society. 

The  objects  of  the  organization  are  to  promote  a  knowledge 
of  the  whole  domain  of  Goethe's  intellectual  activity  and  in- 
fluence, and  to  promote  special  investigations  in  Goethe  liter- 
ature. Annual  meetings  will  be  held  for  the  presentation  of 
papers  and  interchange  of  views.  The  Goethe  Jahrbuch  will 
become  the  organ  of  the  society,  in  which  will  be  published 
much  of  the  fresh  material  discovered  in  the  archives.  The 
volume  for  1886  will  contain  the  letters  of  Goethe  to  his  sister 
Cornelia,  and  to  Behrisch  in  Dessau ;  also,  the  hitherto  un- 
published letters  of  the  Frau  Rath  (Goethe's  mother)  to  the 
Duchess  Amalia,  from  the  state  archives,  the  arrangement  of 
which  has  been  entrusted  to  Archivrath  Burkhardt.  A  sub- 
sequent volume  will  contain  the  letters  of  Goethe  from  Italy 
to  the  Frau  von  Stein,  and  also  his  correspondence  with  his 
wife.  The  Society  will  establish  a  Goethe  museum  and  library, 
with  facilities  for  investigation,  and  seek  to  complete  the 
Goethe  archives. 

The  Grand  Duchess  has  determined  to  inaugurate  two 
monumental  works  :  (1.)  A  complete  life  of  Goethe,  based  on 
his  diaries  and  the  additional  material  contained  among  his 
papers.  This  has  been  undertaken  by  that  most  eminent 
Goethe  scholar,  Privy-Councillor  von  Loeper.  (2.)  A  new 
authentic  edition  of  his  works,  based  upon  the  collation  of  all 


VUl  INTRODUCTION. 

existing  manuscripts,  whicli  will  devolve  upon  Yon  Loeper, 
Scherer,  and  Erich  Schmidt,  the  last  of  whom  has  resigned 
his  professorship  in  the  University  of  Vienna  to  accept  the 
Directorship  of  the  Goethe  Archives. 

At  a  later  session  of  the  Society,  Herr  von  Loeper  and  Pro- 
fessor Scherer  presented  the  results  of  their  examination  of  the 
archives.  Six  cases  were  fiUed  with  the  manuscripts.  One 
contained  accounts  of  domestic  expenses,  the  bills  of  butchers 
and  bakers,  preserved  with  that  order  which  was  character- 
istic of  the  poet ;  a  second  contained  careful  notes,  from  the 
highest  authorities,  together  with  the  results  of  his  own  obser- 
vations in  science  ;  two  other  cases  contained  manuscripts  of 
his  works,  journals,  and  letters.  Von  Loeper  gave  a  general 
view  of  the  contents  of  two  cases  out  of  the  six,  which  he  had 
been  able  to  examine.  The  material  may  be  divided  into 
three  parts :  (1.)  Manuscripts  of  Goethe's  works  ;  (2.)  Letters ; 
and  (3.)  Diaries. 

I.  The  existing  manuscripts,  while  not  presenting  new  and 
complete  works,  reveal  the  methods  of  study  of  the  poet,  the 
vast  field  of  his  intellectual  activit}^,  and  the  origin,  growth, 
and  connection  of  his  various  writings.  They  begin  with  the 
unique  copy  of  the  "  Hollenfahrt  Jesu  Christi,"  written  in 
1765,  and  published  in  "Die  Sichtbaren"  in  1766,  and  end 
with  his  last  great  work,  the  Second  Part  of  Faust,  in  1831, 
thus  coveiing  a  period  of  sixty-six  years.  Many  manuscripts 
most  eagerly  anticijoated  were  not  found,  among  them  the 
original  of  Faust.  Count  Friedrich  Stolberg,  in  describing  a 
visit  to  Weimar  in  1775,  speaks  of  a  glorious  afternoon  when 
Goethe  read  "  his  half-completed  Faust,  a  noble  poem,"  to 
the  Duchesses  and  himself.  This  manuscript,  which  Goethe 
carried  with  him  to  Italy,  would  settle  many  questions  in 
Faust  criticism.  The  preliminary  sketch  of  "  Wilhelm  Meis- 
ter,"  spoken  of  by  Herder,  and  its  earlier  form,  as  well  as 
the  first  version  of  "  Tasso,"  are  missing.  Among  the  treasures 
revealed,  however,  from  the  pre-Weimar  days,  are  a  fine  manu- 
script of  "  Der  Ewige  Jude  " ;  the  first  manuscript  of  "  Gotz  von 


INTRODUCTION.  ix 

Berlicbingen";  a  hitherto  unknown  collection  of  dialogues, 
in  one  of  which  Frau  Aja  plays  a  part  (October  14,  1774); 
and  a  volume  of  youthful  poems,  parts  of  which  are  known 
through  copies  in  the  possession  of  the  Herders  and  Frau  von 
Stein  ;  also,  three  versions  of  the  "  Mitschuldigen  "  (probably 
later  revisions),  and  several  manuscripts  of  "Prometheus," 
one  copied  by  Lenz,  and  one  by  the  Fraulein  von  Gochhausen. 
Belonging  to  the  period  of  his  residence  in  "Weimar  are  copies 
of  his  minor  dramatic  works,  among  them  three  manuscripts 
of  the  "  Triumph  der  Emptindsamkeit." 

From  the  period  of  Goethe's  residence  in  Italy  there  are 
versions  of  the  "  Iphigenie  "  in  prose  and  in  iambics,  "  Tasso," 
and  the  "  Roman  Elegies  "  complete,  in  his  own  autograph. 
Of  later  date  are  three  autograph  manuscripts  of  the  "  Vene- 
tian Epigrams,"  with  many  hitherto  unpublished  ;  some  of 
these  are  of  an  erotic  nature,  others  were  directed  against 
Lavater,  and  still  others  were  anti-clerical  in  spii-it.  A  manu- 
script of  the  "  Grosskophta "  as  an  opera  was  also  found,  and 
"  Elpenor  "  in  two  versions.  Of  the  period  of  Goethe's  con- 
nection with  Schiller,  there  is  the  manuscript  of  "  Hermann 
und  Dorothea,"  copied  probably  by  A.  W.  Schlegel,  with  cor- 
rections by  Goethe.  There  are  also  numerous  smaller  works 
and  fragments, —  among  the  latter  the  beginning  of  a  tragedy 
in  five  acts,  called  "  Das  Madchen  von  Oberkirch,"  in  which 
Goethe  treats  the  phenomena  of  the  French  Revolution.  He 
located  the  action  in  the  Alsatian  village  of  Oberkirch,  with 
the  surroundings  of  which  he  was  familiar.  There  is  also 
a  beautiful  manuscript  of  that  ambitious  fragment,  the 
"Achilleis,"  in  which  Goethe,  filled  with  the  spirit  of  his 
Homeric  studies,  undertook  a  classical  epic,  in  continuation 
of  the  Iliad,  but  stopped  with  the  first  canto.  A  plan,  how- 
ever, has  been  found,  embracing  the  action  of  the  six  books 
originally  contemplated.  Goethe's  enthusiasm  for  Homer  is 
further  shown  by  essays  in  the  translation  of  various  passages 
in  hexameters,  and  even  a  critical  interpretation  of  an  obscvu'e 
passage. 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

His  productivity  is  shown  by  the  vast  materials  accumulated 
in  his  later  studies.  Among  these  are  poems  and  collectanea 
for  the  "  Divan,"  all  in  autograph,  and  nearly  all  supplied  with 
dates.  These  exhibit  various  readings  and  rejected  passages, 
and  are  of  great  value  in  the  interpretation  and  historical 
criticism  of  the  verses  as  they  stand.  He  even  attempted  a 
"  Historisches  Volksbuch"  (1808).  Numberless  minor  poems 
and  fragments  were  found,  occasionally  recreations  of  the 
charming  evenings  of  the  literary  "circles,"  but  more  often 
the  records  of  more  serious  work.  Among  them  are  additional 
Zahme  Xenien,  invectives,  political  stanzas,  attacks  on  persons. 
Erotica,  etc.  There  is  an  attack  upon  Wolfgang  Menzel, 
whose  bitter  hostility  could  not  always  leave  Goethe  unmoved. 
He  is  called  a  "  Potenzierter  Merkel."  There  is  also  an  addi- 
tion to  the  poem,  "  Es  ist  ein  Schuss  gefallen,"  with  references 
to  Friedrich  Schlegel,  and  Miiller,  the  romanticist  and  pub- 
licist, who  followed  his  friend  to  the  Roman  communion. 

Professor  Scherer,  in  his  investigations,  gave  esjDecial  atten- 
tion to  the  manuscripts  of  "  Faust."  He  found,  what  cannot 
be  a  surprise,  from  Goethe's  own  expressions,  that  the  poet  him- 
self had  attempted  an  adaptation  of  the  First  Part  to  the  stage. 
His  plan  for  its  representation  included  in  the  first  act  the 
Dedication,  Prelude,  and  Prologue  in  Heaven.  Music  was 
introduced  skilfully  and  effectively  in  many  passages ;  as  in 
the  abridged  monologue,  and  in  the  scene  of  Faust's  covenant 
with  the  evil  spirit,  when  the  choir  of  spirits  is  heard  contend- 
ing with  one  another,  "  He  will  sign,"  "  He  will  not  sign," 
singing  in  chorus,  until  Mephistopheles  cries, 

"Bliit  ist  ein  ganz  besonder  Saft." 

Goethe's  taste  for  the  opera,  and  his  estimate  of  the  capacity  of 
music  to  heighten  dramatic  effect,  are  shown  by  this  treatment. 
This  scheme  or  arrangement  is  often  styled  in  the  manuscript 
"  melodrama."  As  early  as  1810,  Goethe  considered  the  pre- 
sentation of  "  Faust "  on  the  stage,  and  requested  Zelter  to 
write  the  music  for  the  Easter  Song  and  the  Slumber  Song  of 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

the  Spirits,  "  Schwindet  ihr  dunkeln  Wolbungen  droben"; 
but  the  musician  declined,  and  Goethe  dropped  the  matter  for 
the  time.  Later,  he  was  very  angry  at  the  proposed  production 
of  "Faust"  in  Weimar  in  1828,  before  consultation  with  him, 
"  as  though  he  were  no  longer  alive,  and  without  asking  what 
view  he  might  have  in  the  manner  of  its  presentation."  For 
the  Helena  scenes  there  is  the  most  abundant  material,  and 
there  is  a  manuscript,  "  Helena  im  Mittelalter,  ein  satyrisches- 
Drama,"  which  later  bears  the  odd  title,  "  Satyr-Drama,  eine 
Episode  zu  Faust."  The  inference  is  drawn  from  this,  that 
Goethe's  earliest  work  on  the  "Helena"  continued,  in  the 
ancient  metres,  until  the  appearance  of  "  Faust."  The  results 
of  this  examination  are  in  no  respect  complete  or  final. 

II.  The  second  division  includes  the  letters  to  and  from 
Goethe.  These  cover  an  extended  period,  —  from  his  student 
days  in  Leipzig  to  his  late  Weimar  days.  New  and  unexpected 
materials  are  here  presented.  Of  high  value  in  determining 
the  history  of  Goethe's  life,  and  his  relations  to  his  family, 
are  his  letters  to  his  sister  Cornelia.  Strehlke,  in  his  cata- 
logue of  Goethe's  letters,  recently  completed,  says,  "  No 
single  letter  of  Goethe  to  his  sister  or  his  father  is  known " ; 
but  here  we  have  a  welcome  collection  of  letters  to  his 
sister,  the  companion  of  his  first  triu.mph,  whose  loss  he 
so  greatly  mourned.  There  are  also  letters  to  Behrisch  in 
Dessau,  the  friend  of  his  university  days  in  Leipzig,  from 
whom  he  parted  with  so  much  regret.  There  are  also  three 
letters  written  while  an  advocate  in  Frankfort,  and  thirty- 
eight  letters  to  the  Minister  von  Fritsch.  The  series  of  letters 
which  will  attract  most  attention  are  those  to  his  wife,  covering 
twenty-five  years  in  an  unbroken  succession,  from  1792  to  her 
death  in  1816.  They  are  described  as  evincing  a  "constant 
ardor  and  sincerity  of  feeling,  and  to  afford  an  irrefutable  view 
of  Goethe's  domestic  happiness.  He  communicates  to  her  all 
the  interests  of  his  life,  his  poetic  undertakings,  visits,  and 
moods,  and  shows  a  faithful  interest  in  her  domestic  duties. 
He  is  always  the  kind,  loving,  attentive  husband.     Amid  the 


xii  INTRODUCTION. 

excitements  of  Ms  campaign  in  France,  he  longs  for  his  home, 
and,  for  his  highest  happiness,  wishes  his  dear  one  with  him 
in  Verdun."  There  are  a  hundred  and  eighty  letters  from 
Goethe's  mother,  in  one  collection,  and  additional  letters  in- 
corporated in  the  current  correspondence  of  each  year ;  also, 
numerous  letters,  mostly  notes,  from  Frau  von  Stein,  serving 
to  show  tlie  character  of  their  later  intercourse.  There  are 
letters  of  Frau  von  Grotthus,  Frau  von  Eybenberg,  Amalie  von 
Imhof,  and  F.  Gaspers,  and  single  remembrances  from  Lotte 
Buff  (1798)  and  Lili  Schouemann  (1801). 

Goethe's  letters  from  the  Grand  Duke  Carl  August  are  pre- 
served intact  in  the  collection,  and  show  how  unsatisfactory 
the  present  edition  is.  This  correspondence,  edited  by  Dr. 
Vogel,  was  published  in  1863  in  an  incomplete  form.  It  had 
been  withheld,  owing  to  two  expressions  of  Goethe,  —  one  in 
a  letter  of  November  17,  1787,  from  Eome  :  "  Burn,  I  pray 
you,  my  letters  at  once,  that  they  may  be  read  by  no  one  ; 
with  this  hope  I  can  write  more  freely."  Before  his  departure 
for  Switzerland  in  1797,  he  said:  "I  have  burned  all  the 
letters  sent  to  me  since  1772,  from  a  positive  disinclination  to 
the  publication  of  the  silent  march  of  friendly  intercourse." 
His  views  afterward  changed,  and  he  published  parts  of  his 
correspondence  covering  this  period.  The  letters  preserved  in 
the  Goethe  archives  show  that  the  destruction  of  his  corre- 
spondence was  not  so  general  as  his  language  would  imply. 
Of  particular  interest  at  the  present  time  is  the  discovery  of 
Carlyle's  letters  to  the  poet,  and  copies  of  Goethe's  letters  in 
reply. 

The  Schiller  correspondence  suffered  from  the  arbitrary  and 
capricious  suppressions  of  its  editors,  and  the  fourth  edition 
was  necessary  to  give  it  in  substantial  correctness.  Even  in 
its  present  form  there  is  much  to  be  desired.  Goethe  himself 
says  that  letters  are  the  most  valuable  memorial  of  a  man. 
His  correspondence  grew  with  his  fame  ;  his  interest  extended 
to  the  most  varied  branches  of  literature,  art,  antiquities,  and 
science ;  and  letters  from  scholars,  poets,  and  artists  multiplied 


(( 


^$^^'^ 


TTNIVK 
INTRODUCTION-  xiii 

during  the  later  period  of  his  life.  They  present  his  relations 
to  individuals,  the  growth  of  his  opinions,  his  judgments  of 
men  and  things,  and  the  inception  and  progress  of  his  works. 
Political  events  in  Europe  do  not  escape  him.  Discoveries, 
facts,  and  theories  are  mirrored  in  his  all-reflecting  mind  ;  the 
vi^orks  of  contemporary  and  past  writers  are  estimated ;  and 
thus  his  letters  become  a  contribution  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
literary  history  of  his  time. 

III.  The  third  division  contains  Goethe's  diaries.  These 
begin  in  1776,  before  the  first  year  of  his  residence  in  Weimar 
had  passed,  and  extend  to  the  16th  of  March,  1832,  but  six 
days  before  his  death.  They  present  a  rich  material  for  estimat- 
ing the  poet's  life,  the  existence  of  which  was  entirely  unsus- 
pected. Meagre  and  inaccurate  extracts  from  certain  portions 
had  appeared,  limited  in  range  and  time  ;  but  the  originals  are 
presented  here  entire.  There  is,  however,  a  blank  between, 
the  years  1782  and  1796,  interrupted  by  two  brief  beginnings 
in  1791  and  1793.  These  journals  are  at  first  short,  condensed 
notices,  which  increase  in  fulness  and  richness  of  contents  as 
his  life  advances.  From  1817  they  average  nearly  four  vol- 
umes a  year.  Important  events  are  recorded  with  great  ac- 
curacy. Days  like  those  which  followed  Schiller's  death 
contain  no  entry.  These  diaries  furnish  means  for  determin- 
ing the  dates  of  Goethe's  works,  since  little  that  the  poet  wrote 
went  at  once  to  the  press.  Many  works  were  for  years  under 
his  hand ;  they  were  begun,  discontinued,  resumed,  modified, 
and  completed,  and  their  final  form  dilfered  greatly  from  the 
original  plan. 

The  art  collections  are  extensive,  and  of  great  interest. 
They  contain  plaster  casts;  original  drawings  of  the  old  mas- 
ters, Netherlaud  art  being  especially  represented;  and  even 
sketches  of  early  Italian  painters  ;  many  drawings  of  personal 
friends,  such  as  Tischbein,  Meyer,  Hackert,  Kraaz,  Angelica 
KaufmanU,  and  Kniep  ;  a  rich  collection  of  majolicas;  Italian 
medals,  two  thousand  in  number,  some  of  which  are  unique ; 
numerous  plaques,  two  hundred  Italian  and  German  bronzes. 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

antiques,  and  a  large  number  of  engravings.  To  these  general 
art  collections  have  been  added,  by  gift  of  the  heirs  at  law 
(the  families  of  Count  Henckel  von  Donnersmark  and  the 
Vulpius  family),  the  personal  memorials  of  the  poet,  consist- 
ing of  portraits,  busts,  medallions,  and  casts  of  the  same. 
Among  these  are  portraits  of  Goethe  by  Angelica  Kaufmann 
and  Tischbein,  and  also  a  graceful  portrait,  probably  repre- 
senting Christiane. 

Two  portraits  of  Goethe  are  given  in  our  volume ; 
one  representing  him  in  youth,  before  the  publication 
of  any  except  his  earliest  works ;  the  other  engraved 
from  Eauch's  bust,  which  was  made  in  August,  1820, 
when  Goethe  was  seventy-one.  Both  are  interesting, 
and  neither  is  much  known  in  America,  although 
reduced  copies  of  the  bust  are  common. 

A  partial  bibliography  of  works  relating  to  Goethe's 
youth  will  be  found  at  the  close  of  Professor  White's 
lecture.  We  add  here  a  more  general,  but  still  very 
incomplete  bibliography,  compiled  by  Mr.  John  Ed- 
mauds  of  the  Philadelphia  Mercantile  Library,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  frequenters  of  that  institution. 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 


EEADING  NOTES   GN"  GOETHE. 

The  following  notes  and  references  will  be  found  per- 
tinent, and  will  be  useful  to  any  who  may  wish  to  pursue 
a  course  of  reading  on  these  subjects  :  — 

A.  —  Works  of  Goethe. 

Autobiography  ;  or,  Truth  and  Poetry,  from  my  Life,  edited  by  P. 

Godwin.     New  York,  1846-47.     2  v. 
Bride  of  Corinth,  with  Anster's  Faust. 

Campaign  in  France,  translated  by  R.  Fairie.     London,  1858. 
Same,  in  his  Miscellaneous  Travels,  pp.  71-247. 
Correspondence  between  Schiller  and  Goethe  from  1794-1805,  edited 

by  L.  D.  Schmitz.     London,  1877.     2  v. 
Dramatic  "Works  ;  comprising  Faust,  Iphigenia  in  Tauris,  Torquato 

Tasso,  Egmont,  and  Gotz  von  Berlichingen.     London,  1851. 
Egmont ;  a  Tragedy  in  Five  Acts.     Boston,  1841. 
Elective  Affinities.     Boston,  1872. 
Same,  in  Novels  and  Tales.     Reviewed  in  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 

C.  863. 
Eleonora,  with  a  Poetic  Epistle  from  Werter  to  Charlotte.    London, 

1787. 
Essays  on  Art,  translated  by  S.  G.  "Ward.     New  York,  1862. 
Faust,  eine  Tragbdie.     Stuttgart,  1867. 
Faustus,  a  Dramatic  Mystery  ;  the  Bride  of  Corinth,  the  iirst  "Wal- 

purgis  Night,  translated  and  illustrated  with  Notes  by  J.  Anster. 

London,  1835. 
Faust ;   a  Tragedy  in  Two  Parts,  translated  by  J.  Birch,  with  en- 
gravings by  Brain  after  Retsch.     London,  1839. 
Same,  translated,  with  Notes,  by  C.  T.   Brooks.     [Part  I.  only.] 

Boston,  1856. 
Same,  translated  by  L.  Filmore.     London,  1847. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION. 

Same,  translated  into  Verse  by  J.  Galvan.     Dublin,  1860. 

Same,  translated,  with  Notes,  by  A.  Hayward.  Boston,  1859. 
Part  I.  "  Previous  to  Taylor's  translation  Hayward's  prose  ren- 
dering was  the  leading  ■work  consulted  by  scholars  on  account 
of  its  full  notes  and  lengthy  introduction."  —  Literary  World, 
XII.  273. 

Same,  translated  by  T.  Martin.  Edinburgh,  1865.  Reviewed  in 
North  British  Review.     XLIV.  50. 

Same,  translated  in  Rime  by  C.  Kegan  Paul.  London,  1873.  Ke- 
viewed  in  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  CXLIII.  921. 

Same,  translated  into  the  Original  Metres  by  Bayard  Taylor.  Bos- 
ton, 1871.  2  V.  Has  a  Preface  and  extended  Notes.  "  Bayard 
Taylor's  notes  and  comments  are  exhaustive,  and  imist  be  con- 
sulted by  any  student  of  the  subject  who  wishes  to  go  to  the 
bottom  of  disputed  points.  His  translations  are  quoted  even  by 
the  latest  and  best  German  commentators  in  proof  of  the  meaning 
of  doubtful  passages."  —  Lilcrary  World,  XII.  273. 

Same.  The  Text,  with  English  Notes,  Essays,  and  Verse  Transla- 
tions, by  E.  J.  Turner.     London,  1882.     The  First  Part  only. 

Same.  Shelley's  Translations  of  the  Prologue  in  Heaven  and  of 
the  May-day  Night  scene,  may  be  found  in  his  Poetical  Works. 
London,  1877.     IV.  284. 

Same.     The  Liberal.     London,  1822.     I.  121. 

Boyesen's  Goethe  and  Schiller  has  a  full  and  elaborate  Commentary 
on  the  two  parts  of  Faust,  pp.  151-285. 

The  original  Faust-Legend  may  be  found  in  Roscoe's  German  Novel- 
ists, I.  256. 

Faust  and  Marguerite.     V.  35. 

German  Emigrants  in  his  Novels  and  Tales. 

Good  "Women  in  Ms  Novels  and  Tales. 

Gotz  of  Berlichingen,  with  the  Iron  Hand,  an  Historical  Drama. 
Dublin,  1799. 

Gbtz  von  Berlichingen  in  Ms  Dramatic  Works. 

Herman  and  Dorothea,  translated  by  Ellen  Frothingham.  Illus- 
trated.    Boston,  1870. 

Same,  translated  into  English  Hexameters,  with  an  lutroductoiy 
Essay.     London,  1849. 

Same,  translated  by  T.  C.  Porter.     New  York,  1854. 


INTRODUCTION.  xvii 

Ipliigenia  in  Tauris,  translated  by  W.  Taylor,  in  his  Historic  Sur- 
vey of  German  Poetry.     Loudon,  1830.     III.  249. 

Same  in  his  Dramatic  Works. 

Margaret  Fuller  in  her  Life  Without,  p.  51,  gives  a  sketch  of  this 
Drama,  with  Extracts. 

Letters  from  Switzerland,  in  his  Miscellaneous  Travels,  pp.  1-67. 

Letters  to  Leipzig  Friends,  edited  by  0.  Jahn,  translated  by  K. 
Slater.     London,  1866. 

Meister's  Travels  ;  or.  The  Eenuuciants,  a  Novel.     Boston,  1851. 

Memoirs  wntten  by  himself.     New  York,  1824. 

The  same  as  the  Autobiography  above,  but  another  transla- 
tion, and  contains  only  fifteen  of  the  twenty  books.  It  contains 
biographical  notices  of  the  principal  persons  mentioned  in  the 
memoirs.  "A  most  wretched  and  unfaithful  translation."  — 
Quartcrhj  Review. 

Minor  Poetry,  a  Selection  from  his  Songs,  Ballads,  and  other  lesser 
Poems,  translated  by  W.  G.  Thomas.     Philadelphia,  1859. 

Miscellaneous  Travels ;  comprising  Letters  from  Switzerland,  the 
Campaign  in  France,  the  Siege  of  Mainz,  and  a  Tour  on  the 
Ehine.     London,  1882. 

Novels  and  Tales  :  Elective  Affinities,  Sorrows  of  Werther,  German 
Emigrants,  Good  Women.     London,  1854. 

Poems  and  Ballads,  translated  by  Aytoun  and  Martin.  New  York, 
1859. 

Poems,  translated  in  the  Original  Metres  by  Paul  Dyi-sen.  New 
York,  1878. 

Poems  and  Translations  from  the  German,  by  C.  R.  Lambert. 
London,  1850.     pp.  81-98. 

Peynard  the  Fox.     London,  1845. 

Sammtliche  Werke.     Stuttgart,  1850.     30  v.  in  18. 

Schriften.     Eeutlinger,  1784.     2  v. 

Select  Minor  Poems,  translated  by  J.  S.  Dwight. 

Select  Poems,  in  Baskerville's  Poetry  of  Germany.  New  Yci'k, 
1857.  Contains  a  number  of  Goethe's  Poems  in  the  original, 
with  English  verse  translations  on  the  opposite  page. 

Selections  from  Dramas,  translated,  with  Introduction,  by  A.  Swan- 
wick.     Loudon,  1843. 

Siege  of  Mainz,  in  his  Miscellaneous  Travels,  pp.  251-287. 

h 


xviii  INTRODUCTION. 

* 

Son-ows  of  Werter,  translated  by  "W.  Bender.     London,  1801, 

Stella  :  a  Drama  in  Five  Acts,  translated  by  Benjamin  Thompson. 
German  Theatre,  V.  6.     London,  1801. 

Torquato  Tasso,  in  his  Dramatic  Works. 

A  Tour  on  the  Ehine,  etc.,  in  his  Miscellaneous  Travels,  pp.  291- 
424. 

Truth  aud  Poetry,  same  as  the  Autobiography  above. 

The  First  Walpurgis  Night.  (The  English  version  by  "W.  Bar- 
tholomew.) Compiled  by  Felix  Mendelssohn  Bartholdy.  Bos- 
ton [no  date]. 

Werther,  Trad.  nouv.  et  Notice  biog.  et  litt.  de  L.  Enault.  Paris, 
1855. 

West-Easterly  Divan,  translated,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by 
J.  Weiss.  Boston,  1877.  Reviewed  in  Blackwood,  CXXXII. 
742. 

Wilhelm  Meister's  Apprenticeship.  London,  1873.  Eeviewed  by 
D.  A.  Wasson  in  Atlantic  Monthly,  p.  16. 

B.  —  Works  on  Goethe. 

De  Stael,  Madame.  Goethe  and  his  Dramas  in  her  Germany. 
\  London,  1814.     I.  265,  II.  138. 

Taylor,  W.      Review  of  Goethe's  Works  in  his  Historic   Survey 

of  German  Poetry.     London,  1830.     III.  242-379.     Contains  a 

V  Translation  of  Iphigenia  entire,  and  large  portions  of  other  works. 

Carlyle,  T.  Death  of  Goethe,  in  his  Criticisms  and  Miscellaneous 
Essays.     London,  1872.     IV.  42. 

.  Goethe  in  his  Criticisms  and  Miscellaneous  Essays.  Lon- 
don, 1872.     I.  172. 

.     Goethe's  Works  and  Character,  in  his  Criticisms  and  Mis- 


cellaneous Essays.     Boston,  1838.     I.  220. 
— ,     Goethe's  Helena,  in  his  Criticisms  and  Miscellaneous  Essays. 

Boston,  1838.     I.  162. 
— .     Same.     London,  1872.     I.  126. 
— .     Goethe's  Works,  in  his  Criticisms  and  Miscellaneous  Essays. 


London,  1872.     IV.  132. 

— .     Life  of  SchiUer.     New  York,  1846.     Describes  the  friend- 
ship between  Goethe  and  Schiller,  pp.  Ill,  273. 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

Eckermann,  J.  P.  Conversations  with  Goethe  in  the  Last  Years  of 
his  Life,  translated  by  S.  M.  Fuller  [Ossoli].     Boston,  1839. 

Menzel,  "W.  Goethe,  in  his  German  Literature,  translated  by  C.  C. 
Felton.     Boston,  1840.     III.  1. 

Austin,  S.  Characteristics  of  Goethe,  frora  the  German  of  Falk, 
von  Miiller,  &c.,  with  Notes.     Paris,  1841.     2  v. 

Retsch,  M.     Illustrations  of  Goethe's  Faust.     London,  1843. 

Characteristics  of  Men  of  Genius.     Goethe.     London,  1846. 

Jefl'rey,  Francis.  Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meister,  mi  his  Contributions 
to  the  Edinburgh  Review.     Paris,  1846.     p.  104. 

Ulrici,  H.  Goethe  in  Relation  to  Shakespeare,  in  his  Shakespeare's 
Dramatic  Art.     London,  1846.     p.  512. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.    Goethe,  m  Ais  Hyperion.    Boston,  1849.   p.  155. 

Moschzisker,  F.  A.  Goethe,  in  his  Guide  to  German  Literature. 
London,  1850.     II.  95-170. 

Emerson,  R.  W.  Goethe,  or  the  "Writer,  in  his  Representative  Men. 
Boston,  1851.     p.  209. 

Doring,  H.     J.  W.  von  Goethe's  Biographic.     Jena,  1853. 

Bancroft,  G.  The  Age  of  Schiller  and  Goethe,  in  his  Literary  and 
Historical  Miscellanies,  p.  167.  New  York,  1855.  Contains 
translations  of  several  of  Goethe's  poems,  p.  231. 

Lewes,  G.  H.  The  Life  and  Works  of  Goethe,  with  Sketches  of  his 
Age  and  Contemporaries.     London,  1875.     2  v. 

,     Same.     Boston,  1856.     2  v. 

"Mr.  Lewes's  main  work  was  done  a  long  time  ago,  when  com- 
paratively few  of  Goethe's  letters  were  printed.  And  the  re- 
vision mentioned  in  the  Preface  of  1875  was  not  a  thorough, 
adequate  revision."  —  T.  W.  Lystcr. 

Masson,  David.  Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  and  The  Three  Devils, 
Luther's,  Milton's,  and  Goethe's,  in  his  Essays,  Biographical  and 
Critical.     Cambridge,  1856.     pp.  453. 

.     The  Three  Devils.     London,  1874.     pp.  1-124. 

Godwin,  Parke.  Goethe,  in  his  Out  of  the  Past,  p.  341.  New 
York,  1870. 

Taillandier,  Saint-Rene.  Goethe,  in  Nouvelle  Biographic  Generale. 
Paris,  1857.     XXI.  27. 

Metcalfe,  Frederick.  Goethe,  in  his  History  of  German  Literature. 
London, 1858.     pp.  431-453. 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

Arnim,   Bettine   von.      Goethe's    Correspondence  with    a    Child. 
Boston,  1859.     For  a  review  of  this  work,  by  M.  E.  "VV.  Sher- 
wood, see  Atlantic  Monthly,  XXXI.  216. 
>/  Ossoli,  Margaret  Fuller.     Goethe,  in  her  Life  Without  and  Life 
Within.     Boston  [1859].     p.  23. 

De  Quincey,  T.  Goethe,  in  his  Biographical  Essays.  Boston,  1860. 
p.  227. 

Heine,  W.  The  Romantic  School.  New  York,  1882.  The  chap- 
ter on  "  German  Literature  to  the  Death  of  Goethe,"  treats  largely 
of  Goethe  and  his  relations  to  Herder,  Lessing,  the  Schlegels, 
and  others. 

StefFens,  H.  Story  of  My  Career.  Boston,  1863.  This  book  was 
subsequently  issued  as  "  German  University  Life." 

Merivale,  Herman.  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  Goethe,  in  his  His- 
torical Studies.     London,  1865.     p.  130. 

Caro,  E.  La  PhUosophie  de  Goethe.  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes. 
Paris,  1865-66.     LIX.,  LX.  147,  301,  LXI.  623,  LXII.  386. 

Belaui,  W.  C.  R.  Goethe  und  sein  Liebeleben.  Historischer  No- 
vellenkreis.     Leipzig,  1866.     3  v. 

Calvert,  G.  H.  Weimar,  in  his  Fii'st  Year  in  Europe.  Boston, 
1866.     pp.  165-198. 

.     Goethe  :   His  Life  and  Works.     An  Essay.     Boston,  1872. 

pp.  276. 

.     Goethe,  in  his   Coleridge,  Shelley,  and   Goethe.     Boston, 

1880.     p.  261. 

Conway,  M.  D.  A  Hunt  after  Devils,  in  Harper's  Magazine, 
March,  1869.  XXXVIIL  540.  Contains  notices  of  places  and 
incidents  connected  with  Faust  and  with  Goethe's  house. 

Robinson,  H.  Crabb.  Diary,  Reminiscences,  and  Correspondence. 
Boston,  1869.     2  v. 

Blaze  de  Bury,  H.  Madame  de  Stein  et  Goethe.  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes.     Paris,  1870.     LXXXVI.  900. 

Konewka,  Paul.  Elustrations  of  Goethe's  Faust.  Boston,  1871. 
Twelve  silhouette  designs  with  Taylor's  translations. 

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,  K.  Goethe  and  Mendelssohn  (1821-1831), 
translated,  with  additions,  by  M.  E.  von  Glehn.     London,  1872. 

Mezieres,  A.  Une  Page  de  la  Vie  de  Goethe.  Ses  Affinites  Elec- 
tives.     Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.     Paris,  1872. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

Gostwick,  James,  and  R.  Harrison.    Outlines  of  German  Literature. 

London,  1873.     pp.  221-299,  440. 
Helmboltz,  H.     On  Goethe's  Scientific  Researches,  in  Ids  Popular 

Lectures  on   Scientific  Subjects.     1st  ed.     London,  1873.      pp. 

33-59. 
.      Ueber   Goethe's    naturwissenschaftliche    Arbeiten,  in    Ms 

Populiire  wissenschaftliche  Vortrage.     Braunschweig,  1876.    pp. 

33-53. 
Phelps,  Almira  L.     Life  and  Writings  of  Goethe,  in  her  Reviews 

and  Essays.     Philadelphia,  1873.     p.  180. 
Lazarus,   Emma.      Alide :  an  Episode  of  Goethe's  Life.      Phila- 
delphia, 1874. 
Huttonj__R^_H._  Goethe  and  His  Influence,  in  Ms  Essays  in  Liter- 
ary Criticism.     Philadeljjhia,  1876.     pp.  1-97. 
Sime,  James.     Lessing.     Boston,  1877.     2  v.    Exhibits  the  literary 

relation  of  Goethe  and  Lessing,  with  the  latter's  criticisms  on 

Goethe's  Works. 
Hayward,  A.     Goethe,  in  Foreign  Classics  for  English  Readers. 

Philadelpliia  [London,  1878]. 
Ai-nold,  M.      A   French  Critic  on  Goethe,   in  Ms  Mixed  Essays. 

New  York,  1879.     p.  274. 
Barine,  Arvide.     La  Legende  de  Faust.     Revue  des  Deux  Mondes. 

Paris,  1879.     CXLII.  921. 
Boyesen,  H.  H.      Goethe  and  Schiller  :   their  Lives  and  Works, 

including  a  Commentary  on  Faust.     New  York,  1879. 
Browning,  Oscar.     Goethe,  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica.     9th  ed.   ' 

London,  1879.     X.  721.     Contains  an  extended  list  of  German 

authorities  on  Goethe. 
Taylor,  Bayard.     Goethe,   and  Goethe's  Faust,  in  Ms  Studies  in 

German  Literature.     New  York,  1879.     pp.  304-387. 
Goethe,    Catherine   E.    (Goethe's  mother).      Correspondence   with 

Goethe,   Lavater,  Wieland  et  al.,  translated,  with  Biographical 

Sketches  and  Notes,   by  Alfred   S.   Gibbs.      New  York,  1880. 

pp.  263. 
Grimm,  H.     Life  and  Times  of  Goethe,  translated  by  S.  H.  Adams. 

Boston,  1880.     pp.  559. 
Japp,  Alexander  H.     Goethe,  in  his  German  Life  and  Literature. 

Loudon  [1881].     pp.  269-379. 


xxii  INTRODUCTION. 

Stevens,  Abel.     Madame  de  Stael :  a  Study  of  her  Life  and  Times. 

New  York,  1881.     The  second  volume  contains  notices  of  Weimar 

and  its  literary  celebrities. 
•^  Blackie,  J.  S.     Wisdom  of  Goethe.     Edinburgh,  1883.     pp.  246. 
Diintzer,  H.     Life  of  Goethe,  translated  by  T.  W.  Lyster.    New 

York  [Loudon],  1884.     pp.  796. 
Lewes,  M.  A.     Three  Months  in  Weimar,  in  Jier  Essays  and  Leaves 

from  a  Note-Book,  by  George  Eliot.    New  York,  1884.    p.  226. 

Gives  an  account  of  Goethe's  life  and  associations  at  Weimar. 
Nevinson,  H.     Herder  and  His  Times.     London,  1884. 
r    Seeley,  J.  K.     Goethe,  in  Contemporary  Eeview.     August,  October, 

November,  1884.     XLVI.  166,  488,  653. 

C.  —  Papers  on  Goethe,  in  The  Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy. 
(D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York.) 

Goethe's  Theory  of  Colors,  by  W.  T.  Harris.     I.  63. 

Goethe's  Faust,  Letters  on,  by  H.  C.  Brockmeyer.     I.  178,  II.  114. 

Rosenkranz,  Johann  Karl  Friedrich.     On  the  Second  Part  of  Faust. 

Translated  by  D.  J.  Snider.     I.  65. 
.     On   the   Social   Romances.      Translated   by   T.    Davidson. 

II.  120,  215. 
.     On  the  Wilhelm  Meister.     Translated  by  T.  Davidson.    IV. 

145. 
.     On  the  Composition  of  the  Social  Romances.      Translated 

by  D.  J.  Snider.     IV.  268. 
.     On  Goethe's  Maerchen.      Translated  by  Anna  C.  Brackett. 

V.  219. 
.     On  the  Faust.     Translated  by  Anna  C.  Brackett.     IX.  48, 


225,  401. 
— .     On  Faust  and  Margaret.     Translated  by  Anna  C.  Brackett. 

X.  37. 
— .     On  the  Second  Part  of  Faust.      Translated  by  Anna  C. 


Brackett.     XI.  113. 
Goethe's  Essay  on  Da  Vinci's  Last  Supper.     I.  243. 
Goethe's  Essay  on  the  Laokoon  (tr.).     II.  208. 
Goethe  and  German  Fiction,  F.  G.  Fairfield.     IX.  303. 
Goethe's  Song  of  the  Spirit  over  the  Water,  F.  R.  Marvin.     X.  215. 
Goethe's  Das  Marchen,  by  Gertrude  Garrigues.     XVII.  383. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxiii 

The  Lectures  actually  delivered  at  the  School  of 
Philosophy  in  the  summer  of  1885  were  those  in  the 
following  list,  in  the  order  indicated  by  the  dates. 

CONCORD   SCHOOL  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

SEVENTH  SESSION. 

LECTURES   AND   SUBJECTS,  1885. 

I.     Goetlie's  Genius  and  Work. 

July  16.     Goethe  s  Self-Culture.     By  Mr.   John  Albee,   of  New 

Castle,  N.  H. 
"    18.     Goethe    and   his    "  3fdhrch€n."      By    Eev.    Dr.    F.    H. 

Hedge,  of  Cambridge,  Mass. 
"    24.     Goethe's  Relation  to  Kant  and  Spinoza  in  Philosophy.    By 

Dr.  F.  L.  SoLDAN,  of  St.  Louis. 
"    20.     Goethe  s  Faust.     By  Professor  Harris. 
"   21.     Goethe's  Youth.     By  Professor  H.  S.  White,  of  Cornell 

University. 
"   17.     The  "Ewig-Weibliche."     By   Mrs.  E.  D.  Cheney,  of 

~  Boston. 

"   22.     Goethe's  Faust.    By  Mr.  D.  J.  Snider,  of  Cincinnati. 
"   20.     Goethe's  Relation  to  English  Literature.     By  Mr.  F.  B. 

Sanborn. 
"   28.     Goethe  as  a  Man  of  Science.    A  Conversation  conducted 

by  Mr.  Snider  and  Professor  Harris. 
"   27.     The   Novellettes  in    "Wilhelm   Meister."     By   Professor 

Harris. 
*'   28.     "Wilhelm  Meister"  as  a  Whole.     By  Mr.  D.  J.  Snider. 
"    18.     Goethe  and  Schiller.     By  Rev.  Dr.  Bartol,  of  Boston. 
Aug.   1.     The  Women  of  Goethe.     By  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe,  of 

Boston. 
July  22.     The  Elective  Affinities.     By  Mr.  S.  H.  Emery,  Jr.,  of 

Concord,  Mass. 


XXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

July  25.     Goetlie's  Titanism.     By  Professor  Thomas  Davidson,  of 

Orange,  N.  J. 
"   23.     Goethe  at   Weimar.     By  Professor  W.  T.  Hewett,   of 

Corne]l  University. 
"   21.     Child-Life  as  portrayed  in   GocflvJs    Works.     By  Mrs. 

Caroline  K.  Sherman,  of  Chicago. 
"   27.     Goethe  as  Playivright.    By  Mr.  William  0.  Partridge, 

of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
"   29.     The  Style  of  Goethe.     By  Mr.  C.  W.  Ernst,  of  Boston. 

II.    A  Symposium :  Is  Pantheism  the  Legitimate  Outcome 
of  Modem  Science  ? 

Lectures  by  Eev.  Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody  (July  29)  and  Mr.  John 
FiSKE  (July  29)  of  Cambridge,  Professor  Harris  (July  30),  Dr. 
G.  H.  HowisoN  of  California  (July  31),  Dr.  P.  E.  Abbott  (July 
31)  of  Cambridge,  and  Dr.  Montgomery  of  Texas  (July  31). 

Readings  from  Thoreau,  July  24,  by  Mr.  H.  G.  0.  Blake,  of 
"Worcester. 

The  Lectures  on  Pantlieism  appeared  in  the  "  Jour- 
nal of  Speculative  Philosophy"  for  October,  1885, 
except  Mr.  Fiske's  on  "  The  Idea  of  God,"  which  has 
been  published  as  a  separate  volume  by  Houghton, 
Mifflin,  and  Company,  who  publislied  in  the  same 
way,  in  1884,  Mr.  Fiske's  Lecture  on  "  The  Destiny 
of  Man."  The  Lectures  of  1884,  on  "The  Genius 
and  Character  of  Emerson,"  were  published  in  a  vol- 
ume by  J.  Ft.  Osgood  and  Company,  and  are  now  sold 
by  Ticknor  and  Company,  who  publish  the  present 
volume ;  and  members  of  the  School  are  requested 
to  order  the  volumes  of  the  publishers,  and  not  of 
the  Faculty  of  the  School. 

The  Eighth  Session  of  the  School  will  open  on 
Wednesday,  July  14,  1886,  and  will  continue  two 


INTRODUCTION.  xxv 

weeks.  The  lectures  and  conversations  of  the  first 
week  (July  14-21)  will  be  on  Dante  and  his  Divine 
Comedy ;  those  of  the  second  week  (July  22-29),  on 
Plato  and  his  Infiuenee  in  Philosophy.  The  Lecturers 
will  be  mainly  the  same  as  in  1885,  but  with  some 
omissions  and  important  additions.  It  is  intended 
to  publish  a  volume  of  the  Lectures  on  Dante  in 
1886. 

R  B.  S. 
CoNCOED,  December  1,  1885. 


j.tSE  L/g^^ 


Of 


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GOETHE    IN    YOUTH. 


U  university)) 

THE  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF 
GOETHE. 


I. 

GOETHE'S  YOUTH. 

By  HORATIO  S.  WHITE. 

It  will  readily  be  observed  that  Goethe's  life  may 
be  divided  into  distinct  periods,  each  defined  by 
some  change  in  his  outward  relations,  and  each 
characterized  by  some  change  in  his  inner  develop- 
ment. The  great  divisions  which  would  naturally 
be  made  are :  his  youth  before  the  removal  to  Wei- 
mar ;  the  decade  in  that  Thuringiau  capital  preced- 
ing his  departure  for  Italy,  —  a  journey  which  forms 
the  uiost  significant  epoch  in  his  life ;  the  period  of 
mature  manhood  following,  which  was  passed  in  the 
society  of  Schiller ;  and,  finally,  the  long  and  fruitful 
old  age  during  the  first  third  of  the  present  century. 
Leaving  to  others  the  task  of  tracing  Goethe's  later 
achievements  in  diverse  fields,  —  where  his  tireless 
energy  and  his  perennial  vigor  of  spirit  display  him 
as  the  master  of  prose,  the  incomparable  poet,  the 

1 


2  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

literary  despot,  the  histrionic  magnate,  the  faithful 
prime-minister,  the  profound  investigator  and  gifted 
discoverer,  and  the  unwearied  sage,  —  it  shall  be  my 
attempt  to  depict  him  in  his  early  youth,  and  in 
that  perhaps  most  fascinating  time  of  his  young 
manhood  embracing  the  dawning  consciousness  of 
varied  powers  which  came  to  him  at  Strassburg,  the 
stimulating  intercourse  with  Herder,  the  impulse 
toward  the  study  of  Greek  and  English  literature, 
the  fleeting  fervor  for  Gothic  architecture,  the  sad 
but  lovely  idyl  of  Sessenheim,  the  tempestuous  ardor 
of  the  Wetzlar  entanglement,  and  the  first  flush  of 
creative  genius  breaking  forth  in  "  Gotz,"  in  "Wer- 
ther,"  in  his  matchless  lyrics,  and  in  the  beginnings 
of  "  Faust." 

For  the  study  of  this  period  we  have  ample  sources. 
It  is  but  a  few  years  since  a  work  appeared  under 
the  title,  "  Der  junge  Goethe,"  edited  by  Professor 
Bernays  of  Munich,  and  comprising  the  correspond- 
ence and  literary  proceeds  of  the  first  twenty-five 
years  of  Goethe's  life.  The  editor  had  consulted  the 
original  manuscripts  and  first  editions,  and  had  in 
most  cases  carefully  restored  the  early  orthography, 
which  had  been  modernized  in  the  later  revisions. 
All  the  spice  and  raciness  of  Goethe's  youthful  style, 
the  strongly  flavored  South-German  vernacular,  the 
erratic  spelling  and  still  more  erratic  j)unctuation, 
have  been  preserved  in  their  primitive  freshness. 
Specially  valuable  is  the  series  of  letters  in  which 
his  whole   outward  and  inner  life  is  mirrored  witli 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  3 

all  the  warmth  of  unreserve  which  marked  the  episto- 
lary literature  of  the  last  century. 

To  this  useful  work  let  us  add  Goethe's  Autobi- 
ography, covering  precisely  the  same  period,  but 
composed  at  a  much  later  date. 

"  The  question  whether  one  should  write  his  own 
biography,"  says  Goethe,  "  is  quite  malapropos.  I 
consider  him  who  does  so  to  be  the  most  courteous 
of  men." 

In  his  Autobiography  he  reports  that  throughout 
his  life  he  could  not  refrain  from  embodying  in  a 
written  form  his  personal  experiences,  whether  to 
relieve  his  soul,  or  to  establish  his  conceptions  of 
external  things.  "  Everything  which  has  hitherto 
been  known  as  mine,"  he  concludes,  "  forms  there- 
fore a  great  fragmentary  confession,  to  make  which 
complete  this  trifling  work  is  a  daring  attempt." 

To  Eckermann  he  said,  in  1824  :  "  The  most  im- 
portant part  of  the  individual's  life  is  his  develop- 
ment, which  in  my  case  is  comprised  in  the  detailed 
account  of  '  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung.'  "  And  in  1831 
he  declared  that  the  particular  facts  narrated  in  his 
Autobiography  served  merely  to  confirm  a  general 
reflection,  a  higher  truth. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  from  a  comparison  between 
that  work  and  the  original  sources,  that,  apart  from 
some  unessential  inaccuracies  and  inconsistencies, 
Goethe's  memory  retained  a  trustworthy  impression 
of  his  early  experiences.  It  is  true  that  discrepan- 
cies of  detail  have  often  crept  into  the  relation ;  that 


4  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

events  may  have  been  described  in  a  manner  some- 
what different  from  that  of  their  actual  occurrence ; 
that  a  character  may  have  been  idealized,  and  the 
outlines  softened  and  harmonized  to  accord  with  the 
poet's  purpose.  But  with  all  this,  the  portrayal  of 
his  youthful  days  must  be  considered  thoroughly 
faithful  to  the  inner  meaning  of  his  life. 

Other  contemporary  accounts  of  Goethe's  early 
career  exist,  together  with  a  vast  mass  of  commen- 
tary ;  but  these  two  sources  are  sufficient  to  present 
him  to  us  both  as  he  unconsciously  depicted  him- 
self at  the  time,  and  as  he  afterwards  consciously 
depicted  himself  to  the  world. 

It  may  be  appropriate  at  this  point  to  recall  the 
principal  features  of  Goethe's  earlier  years.  We  find 
in  them  an  exceptional  concurrence  of  fortunate  cir- 
cumstances. Born  into  an  advantageous  environ- 
ment, an  independent  citizen  of  a  free  municipality, 
endowed  with  great  natural  gifts,  possessed  of  va- 
ried accomplishments  and  acquirements,  with  com- 
fortable if  not  affluent  means,  coming  into  contact 
with  many  of  the  illustrious  people  of  his  day,  and 
viewing  many  of  the  notable  events  of  that  period, 
his  life  assumes  more  than  an  individual  interest, 
and  becomes  important  and  significant  as  typifying 
and  illustrating  his  times.  The  Lisbon  earthquake 
touches  his  young  heart,  and  forces  him  to  question 
the  goodness  of  the  Creator ;  tlie  French  occupy 
Frankfort,  and  he  is  initiated  into  the  political 
quarrels  of  tlie  Seven  Years'  War ;   in  his  rambles 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  5 

among  the  common  people  at  their  labors  and  their 
pastimes  in  that  curious  old  town,  he  imbibes  the 
spirit  of  their  walk  and  conversation,  which  is  after- 
wards reflected  with  fidelity  in  the  popular  scenes 
of  his  dramas ;  the  coronation  of  Joseph  the  Second 
unrolls  before  his  eyes  the  pageantry  of  the  pom- 
pous but  hollow  Empire  ;  as  a  student  at  Leipzig  he 
skims  round  the  circle  of  knowledge,  and  chants, 

"Da  steh'  ich  nun,  ich  armer  Thor, 
Und  bin  so  klug  als  wie  zuvor." 

The  Dresden  Gallery  attracts  and  charms  him  with 
its  pictorial  treasures ;  in  Frankfort  the  gentle  and 
devout  mystic,  Fraulein  von  Klettenberg,  pursues 
with  him  studies  in  alchemy,  and  imbues  him  with 
the  doctrines  of  pietism;  and  in  1770  he  arrives  at 
Strassburg,  in  season  to  behold  the  daughter  of  Maria 
Theresia  crossing  the  Ehine  on  her  triumphal  and 
fateful  journey  toward  the  French  capital. 

Let  us  here  note  a  few  characteristic  passages  from 
his  earlier  letters.  Writing  in  1764,  at  the  age  of 
fourteen,  he  describes  himself  as  follows :  — 

"  One  of  my  chief  defects  is,  that  I  am  somewhat 
impulsive.  You  know  of  course  the  choleric  tempera- 
ment ;  on  the  other  hand,  no  one  forgets  an  affront  more 
readily  than  I.  Furthermore,  I  am  quite  accustomed  to 
be  imperious ;  but  when  I  have  nothing  to  say,  I  can  let 
things  go.  However,  I  am  quite  willing  to  submit  to 
authority  when  it  is  exercised  as  should  be  expected. 
One  thing  more,  I  am  very  impatient,  and  do  not  like  to 
remain  long  in  uncertainty." 


6  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

To  a  home  friend  he  writes  from  Leipzig,  in  1765, 
describing  his  college  life  :  — 

"  What  am  I  studying  1  Is  it  worth  while  asking  ? 
Institutiones  imperiales.  Historiam  juris.  Pandectas,  and 
a  private  course  on  the  first  seven  and  last  seven  titles 
of  the  Codex.  For  one  does  not  need  any  more,  the  rest 
one  forgets  anyway.  No,  your  obedient  servant !  That 
we  will  let  well  alone.  — Next  week  the  courses  in  philos- 
ophy and  mathematics  begin. 

"  Gottsched  I  have  not  yet  seen.  He  has  married 
again.  You  know  it  though.  She  is  nineteen  and  he  is 
sixty-five.  She  is  four  shoes  tall  and  he  seven.  She  is 
as  thin  as  a  herring  and  he  as  stout  as  a  sack  of  feathers. 
—  I  'm  cutting  a  great  figure  here,  but  am  no  dandy  yet, 
nor  shall  I  become  so.  I  have  to  be  rather  clever  in 
order  to  get  time  to  study.  To  parties,  concerts,  the 
theatre,  at  banquets,  suppers,  excursions,  no  end !  Ah, 
it's  a  precious  time,  but  a  precious  business  too!  It 
costs !     The  deuce,  but  my  purse  feels  it. 

"  Stop  !  save  us !  hold  on  !  Don't  you  see  them  flying  1 
There  go  two  Louis  d'or  marching  off.  Help !  There 
goes  another.  Heavens  !  a  couple  more.  Dimes  with  us 
are  like  cents  with  you.  But  yet  one  may  live  very 
cheaply  here.  I  hope  to  get  through  the  year  on  three 
hundred  thalers  —  what  do  I  say  1  —  with  two  hundred 
thalers,  N.  B.  Not  counting  in  what  has  already  gone 
to  the  dogs." 

At  the  end  of  his  Leipzig  course  he  writes  back, 
in  1768,  a  giateful  letter  to  Oeser,  one  of  his  in- 
structors :  — 


GOETHE'S  YOUTH.  7 

"  What  do  I  not  owe  you,  dearest  Professor,  that  you 
have  shown  me  the  way  to  the  true  and  beautiful,  that 
you  have  rendered  my  heart  susceptible  to  all  that  is 
stimulating?  The  taste  which  I  have  for  what  is  beauti- 
ful, my  knowledge,  my  insight,  —  do  I  not  possess  them 
all  through  you*?  How  true  and  clear  the  strange,  almost 
unintelligible  saying  has  become  to  me,  that  the  work- 
shop of  the  great  artist  develops  the  budding  philosopher, 
the  budding  poet,  more  than  the  auditorium  of  the  sage 
and  the  critic !  Teaching  does  much,  but  encouragement 
does  everything.  Who  among  all  my  teachers  has  ever 
deemed  me  worthy  of  encouragement  save  you  1  Either 
all  blame  or  all  praise,  and  nothing  can  so  destroy  one's 
capacity.  Encouragement  after  blame  is  sun  after  rain, 
fruitful  growth. 

"  You  have  taught  me  to  be  humble  without  being  cast 
down,  and  to  be  proud  without  presumption.  I  could 
find  no  end  of  saying  what  you  have  taught  me ;  pardon 
my  grateful  heart  this  apostrophe ;  I  have  that  in  com- 
mon with  all  tragic  heroes,  that  my  passion  would  fain 
pour  forth  in  tirades,  and  woe  to  the  one  who  gets  in  the 
way  of  my  lava  ! " 

These  earlier  years  yielded  an  abundance  of  literary 
composition,  the  remnants  of  which  reveal  not  indis- 
tinctly the  coming  lyric  poet,  while  the  two  little 
comedies  of  that  date  betray  the  influence  upon  their 
composer  of  the  lighter  French  dramatists,  and  per- 
haps of  Wieland,  with  whose  writings  he  was  then 
quite  captivated.  One  may  also  detect  reflections  in 
thin  disguise  of  Goethe's  juvenile  affaires  dc  cceu?', 
the  confession  of  which  has  already  begun. 


8  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

To  Strassburg  he  comes  at  twenty.  Of  deep  im- 
port was  his  sojourn  in  the  quaint  Alsatian  city.  It 
gave  him  the  Cathedral,  Herder,  and  Friederike. 

At  Leipzig  Goethe  had  been  led  to  regard  the  term 
Gothic  as  the  Greeks  did  Barbarian.  An  ignorant 
but  declared  enemy  to  that  style  of  architecture,  he 
is  now  confronted  in  silent  reproach  by  the  mighty 
and  impressive  minster.  His  conversion  is  as  sudden 
and  complete  as  that  of  Saul  of  Tarsus ;  and  in  the 
rhapsodic  essay, "  Von  Deutscher  Baukunst,"  a  memo- 
rial to  the  noble  architect,  Erwin  von  Steinbach,  is 
contained  his  recantation.     He  bursts  forth  :  — 

"With  what  an  unexpected  sensation  did  its  aspect 
surprise  me !  My  soul  was  filled  by  an  impression  of 
grandeur  and  completeness,  which,  consisting  of  a  thou- 
sand harmonious  details,  I  was  able  indeed  to  taste  and 
enjoy,  without  recognizing  or  explaining  it.  They  say  it 
is  so  with  the  joys  of  heaven ;  and  how  often  have  I  re- 
turned to  partake  of  this  joy  of  heaven  upon  earth,  to 
comprehend  the  giant  spirit  of  our  elder  brothers  in  their 
works !  How  often  has  my  eye,  wearied  by  its  searching 
inspection,  been  refreshed  in  cheerful  repose  by  the  even- 
ing twilight,  when  the  countless  parts  melted  into  entire 
masses,  and  these,  simple  and  grand,  stood  before  my 
soul !  Then  was  revealed  to  me  in  gentle  premonitions 
the  genius  of  the  great  master.  And  how  freshly  it 
dawned  u}X)n  me  in  the  vaporous  splendor  of  the  morn- 
ing !  How  rejoiced  I  was  to  behold  the  great,  harmonious 
masses  enlivened  into  numberless  minute  details,  as  in 
works  of  eternal  nature,  down  to  the  slightest  fibre,  every- 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  9 

thing  form,  and  everything  adapted  to  the  whole  !  how 
the  firmly  founded  monstrous  structure  rises  lightly  into 
air  !  how  like  network  all,  and  yet  for  eternity  !  " 

If  these  early  and  entliusiastic  impressions  gradu- 
ally faded,  and  well-nigh  were  extinguished  by  the 
stay  in  Italy,  at  the  end  of  Goethe's  life  they  were 
once  more  revived,  less  ardent,  but  with  greater  clear- 
ness, and  again  through  the  influence  of  his  study  of 
another  worthy  and  imposing  structure,  the  Cathedral 
at  Cologne. 

Before  meeting  Herder  in  Strassburg,  Goethe  had 
not  come  into  contact  with  a  mind  of  the  first  order. 
Herder  was  five  years  older,  had  already  gained  repu- 
tation as  a  writer,  and  had  recently  returned  to  Ger- 
many from  an  extended  tour  in  France  and  Holland. 
He  writes  to  his  Eiga  friends,  that,  whereas  before 
he  had  been  frothy,  vain,  erratic,  and  whimsical,  they 
would  now  find  him  more  manly,  ripe,  developed, 
cosmopolitan,  more  of  a  Briton,  and  perchance  thrice 
as  ardent,  instead  of  frivolous,  Frenchy,  and  unstable. 
His  relation  to  Goethe  was  similar  to  Goethe's  rela- 
tions with  Schiller  at  the  first  meeting  in  1788,  after 
the  Italian  journey.  Said  Schiller,  in  describing  to 
Korner  this  interview  :  "  Goethe  is  so  far  ahead  of 
me,  less  perhaps  in  years  than  in  experience  of  life 
and  in  self-development,  that  we  shall  never  come 
together  while  en  route."  Goethe  felt  toward  Herder 
the  same  modesty  of  immaturity ;  nor  did  Herder,  to 
whom  his  young  admirer  seemed  then  but  a  wald 
fledgling,  seek  to  spare  his  sensibilities.     Mercilessly 


10  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

caustic,  lashing  Goethe's  foibles  and  conceits,  estab- 
lishing no  such  relations  of  mutual  admiration  and 
mutual  palliation  as  then  existed  among  many  promi- 
nent German  litterateurs,  yet  holding  him  by  force  of 
lofty  character  and  a  reach  and  range  which  Goethe 
fully  acknowledged,  a  moral  pedagogue  of  the  finest 
type,  and  already  a  literary  critic  and  historian  of 
independent  and  original  stamp,  his  was  an  influence 
to  correct,  to  guide,  and  to  inspire  his  fervid  young 
follower.  It  is  Herder,  then,  who  expounds  to  Goethe 
the  bearings  of  modern  literature,  who  rails  at  the 
weaknesses  of  the  contemporary  native  authors,  who, 
fresh  from  Paris,  yet  sated  with  French  materialism^ 
turns  away  from  Voltaire  and  the  philosophers, 
although  for  a  time  singling  out  Rousseau  alone  as 
the  apostle  of  the  day,  and  aids  Goethe  to  check  and 
overcome  his  own  early  tendencies,  who  introduces 
him  to  Swift,  to  Goldsmith,  to  Ossian,  and  to  Shake- 
speare anew,  who  teaches  him  to  know  the  Greeks, 
to  appreciate  the  Hebrew  bards,  and  to  realize  that 
poetry  is  not  the  possession  of  a  learned  caste,  but 
the  heritage  of  all  mankind. 

In  that  initial  year  of  their  acquaintance  Goethe 
thus  addresses  his  new  correspondent :  — 

"  I  am  compelled  to  write  to  you  in  the  midst  of  my 
first  sensations.  Away  with  mantle  and  collar  !  Your  spicy 
letter  is  worth  three  years  of  every-daj  experience.  There 
is  uo  answer  to  it,  and  who  could  answer  it  1  My  whole 
self  is  thrilled,  —  that  you  may  imagine,  man,  —  and  the 
vibration  is  still  too  great  for  my  pen  to  move  steadily. — 


GOETHE'S  YOUTH.  11 

Herder,  Herder,  abide  to  me  what  you  are  to  me.'  If  I 
am  destined  to  be  your  planet,  I  will  be  so,  will  be  so 
gladly,  will  be  so  loyally.  A  friendly  moon  to  the  earth. 
But  this  —  feel  it  absolutely  —  that  I  should  rather  be 
Mercury,  the  least,  the  smallest  rather  among  seven,  re- 
volving with  you  around  one  sun,  than  the  first  among 
five  turning  about  Saturn. 

"  Adieu,  dear  man  !  I  will  not  let  you  go.  I  will  not 
leave  you.  Jacob  wrestled  with  the  angel  of  the  Lord. 
Even  if  I  should  grow  weary  at  it  !  " 

The  later  relations  of  Herder  and  Goethe  at  "Wei- 
mar are  beyond  the  scope  of  this  paper,  but  we  may 
recall  that  it  was  the  latter's  influence  which  secured 
for  Herder  his  summons  to  the  principal  ecclesiastical 
position  in  the  Duchy,  and  that,  if  their  subsequent 
association  was  not  always  of  the  most  cordial  de- 
scription, the  fault  or  the  misfortune  must  be  laid 
chiefly  at  the  door  of  the  Herders. 

Before  leaving  Strassburg,  a  word  on  Friederike. 
The  well-known  incidents  of  the  story  may  be  briefly 
narrated.1  A  young  man,  fresh  from  the  perusal  of  a 
literature  of  poetry  and  sentiment,  wanders  away  on 
horseback  with  a  student  friend  over  the  smiling 
meadows.  In  the  picturesque  little  village  of  Sessen- 
heim  he  is  presented  to  a  pastor's  family,  whose  sit- 
uation to  his  quick  imagination  soon  reproduces,  with 
strange  parallelism,  the  environment  of  the  Wakefield 
group  in  Goldsmith's  "  Vicar,"  a  work  which  Herder 

'  Cf.    "A  Pilgrimage  to  Sesenheim,"  Lippincott's  Magazine, 
February,  1884. 


12  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

was  introducing  to  Strassburg  circles.  Eeceived  with 
full  rural  cordiality,  he  lingers  and  returns,  and  re- 
turns and  lingers,  until  a  fair  lieart  is  fatally  his  own. 
The  end  of  his  academic  course  is  the  end  of  the  idyl. 
The  world  demands  him,  and  to  the  world  he  yields 
himself;  and  a  summer  of  perilous  sweetness  has  sad- 
dened one  joyous  life,  and  left  in  anotlier  a  lasting 
sting  of  remorse.  Traces  of  this  remorse  one  may 
find  in  the  long  deferred  confession  which  Goethe's 
narrative  contains,  —  a  narrative  which  the  aged  poet 
could  not  dictate  without  signs  of  deep  emotion.  He 
depicts  his  conscious  feeling  that  a  withdrawal  would 
be  indefensible,  his  inability  to  break  away  from  the 
beloved  object  even  when  he  had  in  purpose  re- 
nounced her,  the  pain  of  the  final  parting,  and  the 
heart-rending  answer  of  Friederike  to  a  farewell  in 
writing.  "  Here  for  the  first  time,"  he  continues,  "  I 
was  guilty,  I  had  keenly  wounded  a  most  beautiful 
soul ;  and  the  period  which  followed  was  an  almost 
unendurable  time  of  gloomy  repentance."  He  seeks 
for  aid  in  poetry,  and  acknowledges  that  the  two 
Marys  in  "  Gotz  "  and  "  Clavigo,"  and  the  sorry  roles 
which  their  lovers  play,  are  the  results  of  his  remorse- 
ful contemplations.  In  the  Gretchen  of  "  Faust,"  too, 
one  may  recognize  traits  of  the  unaffected  village 
maiden;  and  some  of  the  most  irresistible  of  Goethe's 
earlier  poems  were  directly  inspired  by  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Friederike  Brion.  What  a  gust  of  stormy 
fervor  sweeps  through  the  stanzas  of  "  Willkommen 
und  Abschied  "  ! 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  13 

"  Es  scUug  mein  Herz  ;  gescliwind  zu  Pferde, 

Und  fort,  wild,  wie  ein  Held  zur  Schlacht! 
Der  Abend  wiegte  schon  die  Erde, 

Und  an  den  Bergen  hieng  die  Nacht; 
Schon  stund  im  Nebelkleid  die  Eiche, 

Wie  ein  gethiirmter  Eiese,  da, 
Wo  Finsterniss  aus  dem  Gestrauche 

Mit  hundert  schwarzen  Angen  sah. 

"Der  Mend  von  seinem  Wolkenhligel, 

Schien  schlafrig  aus  dem  Duft  hervor; 
Die  Winde  schwangen  leise  Fliigel, 

Umsausten  schauerlich  mein  Olir  ; 
Die  Nacht  schuf  tausend  Ungeheuer  — 

Doch  tausendfacher  war  mein  Muth; 
Mein  Geist  war  ein  verzehrend  Feuer, 

Mein  ganzes  Herz  zerfloss  in  Gluth." 

And  again  in  the  glad  "  Mayfest,"  where  every  line 
is  a  joyous  heart-beat :  — 

"Wie  herrlich  leuchtet 
Mir  die  Natur  ! 
Wie  glanzt  die  Sonne  ! 
Wie  lacht  die  Flur  ! 

"  Es  dringen  Bliiten 
Aus  jedem  Zweig, 
Und  tausend  Stimmen 
Aus  dem  Gestrauch. 

"  Und  Freud'  und  Wonne 
Aus  jeder  Brust. 
O  Erd  !  0  Sonne  ! 
0  Gluck  !  0  Lust  !  " 

But  Sessenheim  was  not  enough ;  for  this  way- 
wardness of  Goethe  ceased  not  with  maturer  years. 
That  the  poet  has  been  his  own  accuser  cannot  ren- 


14  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

der  one's  censure  less  severe.  For  this  censure  is 
undoubtedly  induced  by  the  feeling  that,  if  a  great 
genius  should  not  need  to  be  governed  by  the  same 
laws  perhaps  as  the  ordinary  mortal,  this  must  hap- 
pen by  reason  of  his  rising  superior  to  those  laws, 
not  by  his  falling  subject  to  their  jurisdiction  and 
then  claiming  exemption  by  a  special  act  of  grace. 
Such  censors  feel  that  Goethe's  life,  despite  its 
great  intellectual  sweep,  does  not  mirror  a  moral 
career  correspondingly  pure  and  lofty.  To  guard 
an  artless  maiden  against  the  involuntary  devia- 
tions of  her  unshielded  heart,  to  observe  not  merely 
the  visible  and  outward,  but  the  invisible  spiritual 
sanctities  of  betrothal  and  wedlock,  to  despise  not, 
even  in  externals,  the  righteous  formalities  of  the 
marriage  tie,  —  this  much,  at  least,  may  be  de- 
manded of  that  man  before  whom  we  are  to  bow 
the  head.  It  is  this  fine  "sense  of  conduct,"  to  bor- 
row a  happy  phrase  of  Matthew  Arnold,  the  lack 
of  which  many  severe  Western  Puritans  deplore  in 
the  author  of  "Stella,"  and  such  a  lack  to  them 
fatally  mars  Goethe's  character.^  Whether  this  lack 
arose  from  the  constitution  of  society  in  Goethe's 
day,  or  was  an  innate  defect  of  his  own,  we  shall 
leave  for  others  to  decide.  Yet  a  faithful  chronicler 
of  Goethe's  early  years  may  not  write,  as  the  English 
Laureate  of  his  friend, 

"A  passion  pure  in  suowy  bloom 
Through  all  the  years  of  April  blood." 

1  Cf.  Das  Goethe-Jahrbuch,  1884,  p.  237,  "  Goethe  in  Amerika." 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  15 

Nor  in  spite  of  Goethe's  ardent  human  praise  of 
woman,  and  the  many  exquisite  feminine  portraits 
wliich  he  has  drawn,  do  we  find  that  reverential  and 
ethereal  adoration  in  thought  and  act  of  which  types 
are  not  wanting  in  modern  literature  and  life.  While 
conceding,  then,  the  wide  sweep  of  his  sympathies 
and  of  his  intellectual  powers,  it  must  not  be  consid- 
ered unjust  to  Goethe  to  deny  him,  hot  moral  emi- 
nence, but  that  moral  pre-eminence  which  is  the  mark 
of  the  finest  spiritual  organizations. 

The  four  years,  from  1771  to  1775,  between  Goe- 
the's departure  from  Strassburg  and  his  arrival  in 
Weimar,  were  filled  with  varied  experiences  and . 
with  the  most  active  literary  productivity.  It  was 
a  whirl  of  journey  upon  journey,  of  friendship  added 
to  friendship,  of  love  affair  and  tender  attachment. 
On  one  side,  Schlosser,  Merck,  Gotter,  Kestner,  the 
Stolbergs,  Leuchsenring,  Lavater,  Basedow,  Klop- 
stock,  the  Jacobis,  Knebel,  and  the  Weimar  princes ; 
and'  on  the  other,  Lotte,  La  Eoche  and  Maximiliane, 
Fraulein  von  Klettenberg,  Anna  Monch,  the  Countess 
Stolberg,  and  Lilli  von  Schbnemann ;  while  the 
restless  youth  ycleped  the  Wanderer  went  roaming 
through  the  woody  solitudes  about  his  native  place ; 
or  visited  the  courts  at  Wetzlar  to  pursue  anything  but 
law ;  or  strayed  up  and  down  the  Main  and  Ehine  and 
Lahn,  or  through  the  pleasant  South-German  cities,  or 
into  Switzerland  and  over  the  St.  Gothard  ;  and  again 
from  Frankfort  setting  out  for  Italy,  but  turning 
back  at  Heidelberg,  and  onward  at  last  to  Weimar. 


16  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 


P>^ 


Equally  nomadic,  too,  his  intellectual  career.  Os- 
tensibly trained  for  the  legal  profession,  his  studies 
had  spread  over  a  far  wider  field.  His  note-books 
at  the  University  disclose  an  interest  in  medicine, 
chemistry,  anatomy,  physics,  philosophy,  and  general 
literature.  Nor  were  music  and  art  neglected.  "  To 
regard  things  carefully,  to  store  them  up  in  memory, 
to  give  good  heed  and  let  no  day  pass  without  col- 
lecting something,  this,"  writes  Goethe  from  Strass- 
burg,  "  is  what  we  now  have  to  do."  And  again  : 
(^Jurisprudence  begins  to  please  me.  After  all,  it  is 
like  Merseburg  beer,  —  the  first  sip,  you  shudder,  but 
after  a  week  you  cannot  do  without  it^J  And  chem- 
istry still  remains  my  secret  mistress." 

His  first  months  in  Frankfort  give  him  a  distaste 
for  the  practice  of  the  law,  as  well  as  a  prejudice 
against  the  aristocratic  philistinism  of  the  place.  He 
institutes  a  Shakespeare  celebration,  and  pronounces 
an  ecstatic  oration. 

"  The  first  page  which  I  read  in  him,"  he  exclaims, 
"  made  me  his  own  for  all  my  life,  and  when  I  had  finished 
the  first  piece  I  stood  as  one  horn  blind,  to  whom  a  mi- 
raculous touch  has  in  a  moment  restored  his  vision.  I 
recognized,  I  felt  most  keenly,  that  my  existence  was  in- 
finitely broadened.  All  was  new  and  unknown  to  me, 
and  the  unaccustomed  radiance  pained  my  sight.  I 
doubted  not  a  moment  to  renounce  the  regular  theatre. 
Unity  of  place  seemed  to  me  so  oppressively  confining, 
unity  of  action  and  time  burdensome  fetters  for  our  im- 
agination !  — And  now  that  I  saw  how  much  the  men  of 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  17 

rules  in  their  prison  pen  had  wronged  me,  my  heart 
would  have  burst  if  I  had  not  declared  war  against  them, 
and  daily  sought  to  storm  their  towers." 

It  was  his  "  Gotz  von  Berlichingen "  wliicli  led 
the  assault.  No  cold  and  stately  hero  from  classic 
antiquity,  but  a  valiant  mediseval  German  knight, 
bluff  and  honest,  fuming  and  fighting,  and  dying 
bravely. 

Goethe  waits  for  Herder's  judgment.  "Shake- 
speare has  quite  ruined  you,"  exclaims  impatiently 
Herder.  "Enough,"  cries  Goethe.  "It  must  be 
melted  down,  freed  from  dross,  furnished  with  nobler 
material,  and  be  recast.  Then  shall  it  appear  before 
you  again."  It  is  done,  and  with  the  several  draughts 
before  us  we  can  watch  the  work  and  note  the  change. 
At  last,  a  fresh,  vigorous  drama,  or  series  of  spirited 
dramatic  tableaux  and  staccato  dialogue,  distin- 
guished by  no  unity  of  design  nor  historic  accuracy, 
but,  with  all  its  ragged  edges,  a  healthful,  breezy, 
patriotic  outburst. 

In  1772  the  "Frankfurt  Gelehrte  Anzeigen,"  a 
semiweekly  journal,  was  founded  by  friends  of  Goe- 
the, and  created  a  great  sensation.  He,  as  well  as 
Herder,  becomes  at  once  a  collaborator,  and  a  remark- 
able series  of  critical  reviews  is  issued.  Pungent, 
racy,  epigrammatic,  slashing  away  at  all  pretence 
however  dignified,  dealing  fearless  censure  and  whole- 
souled  praise,  —  we  need  no  acquaintance  with  the 
writings  examined  to  appreciate  and  enjoy  the  clear 
view,  the  bubbling   extravagance,  the   lusty  blows, 

2 


18  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

the  wit,  and  withal  the  sound  judgment  which  is 
displayed. 

Snatches  only  can  we  quote,  from  the  collections  of 
Bernays  and  of  Scherer,  for  our  space  forbids  longer 
and  perhaps  more  significant  passages. 

On  a  work  entitled  "  Letters  regarding  the  most 
important  Truths  of  Eevelation,"  he  comments  :  — 

"  These  letters  are  directed  principally  against  the 
haughty  sages  of  our  century  who  see  in  God  something 
else  than  the  penal  judge  of  degraded  humanity,  who 
believe  that  the  creature  of  his  hand  is  no  monster,  that 
in  the  sight  of  God  this  world  is  something  more  than 
the  antechamber  of  the  future  state,  and  who  peradven- 
ture  even  presume  to  hope  that  he  will  not  punish  to  all 
eternity.  We  pass  by  the  attacks  upon  the  foes  of  reve- 
lation, which  often  are  blows  in  the  air ;  the  argumenta- 
tion regarding  the  history  of  mankind  at  the  time  of  the 
Redeemer,  and  the  many  accumulated  proofs  of  Chris- 
tianity of  which  one  can  no  more  demand  than  from  a 
bundle  of  rods  that  they  should  all  be  of  equal  strength. 
But  we  ask  all  fanatics  on  both  sides  to  consider  whether 
it  be  seemly  to  maintain  in  a  spirit  of  persecution  that 
what  it  is  claimed  is  regarded  by  God  as  good  or  evil  on 
our  part  is  good  or  evil  in  his  Sight  too,  or  whether  that 
which  is  refracted  in  our  sight  into  two  colors  may  not 
flow  back  to  him  in  one  ray  of  light.  In  this  we  all  agree, 
that  man  should  do  that  which  we  all  call  good,  whether 
his  spirit  be  a  muddy  pool  or  a  mirror  of  beautiful  nature, 
whether  he  has  strength  to  journey  along  his  way,  or  is 
sick  and  needs  a  crutch.  Strength  and  crutch  come  from 
one  hand.     In  that  we  agree,  and  that  is  enough  !  " 


GOETHE'S  YOUTH.  19 

The  following  notices  illustrate  what  may  be 
called  the  summary  process  :  — 

"  Address  to  his  Royal  Highness,  the  Grand-diihe  Paul 
Petrowitsch.  Petersburg,  1772.  —  Alexander  used  to  take 
a  poet  along  with  him,  to  whom  he  would  give  on  contract 
a  coin  for  every  good  verse  and  a  cuff  for  every  poor  one. 
We  trust  that  this  poetic  spokesman  made  other  condi- 
tious  for  himself,  and  we  admire  the  patience  and  vigi- 
lance of  the  young  Duke,  if  he  heard  the  address  through 
without  falling  asleep." 

"  The  Brother.  By  a  Lady.  2  vols.  —  We  desire  that 
this  brother  may  remain  the  only  son  of  his  fither ;  for 
the  work  is  beneath  criticism." 

"  The  Praise  of  Fashion,,  an  Address  delivered  and 
printed  ct  la  Mode.  1772.  .  .  .  And  also  written  ct  la 
mode ;  that  is,  as  badly  as  possible." 

"  Wolf  Krage,  a  Tragedy,  hy  Johannes  Ewald,  from 
the  Danish.  1772.  —  Night,  high  treason  and  fratricide, 
abomination  and  death,  and  gloom,  horrors,  pains  of  love 
and  pains  of  dissolution,  so  that  with  a  devout  '  Heaven 
preserve  us ! '  we  began  to  think  about  going  home 
betimes ! " 

^^  Lyric  Poems  hy  Blum.  Berlin,  1772.  .  .  .  We  wish  the 
composer  a  first-rate  girl,  days  of  leisure,  and  the  pure 
poetic  spirit,  without  the  spirit  of  authorship.  The  best  of 
poets  degenerates  when  he  has  the  public  in  mind  while 
composing,  and  when  filled  more  with  a  desire  for  fame, 
especially  newspaper  fame,  than  with  his  subject." 

"  Enlightened  Times  ;  or  a  Contemplation  of  the  Pres- 
ent Condition  of  the  Sciences  and  Prevailing  Customs  in 


20  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

Germany.  Ziillichau,  1772. — A  tedious  academic  discus- 
sion. The  composer,  who  is  probably  quite  young,  at  least 
quite  inexperienced,  knows  the  world  only  from  the  four 
faculties,  and  must  have  heard  somewhere  that  we  live 
in  enlightened  times.  Now  this  vexes  him,  and  so  he 
proves  that  the  philosophei's  are  not  enlightened  because 
some  still  defend  the  best  world ;  nor  the  doctors,  be- 
cause so  many  men  die  ;  nor  the  lawyers,  because  there 
are  so  many  laws  without  lawsuits,  and  lawsuits  without 
laws ;  nor  the  theologians,  because  they  are  so  obstinate, 
and  because  one  falls  asleep  so  often  when  they  preach ; 
nor  the  humanists,  because  they  do  not  pursue  Latin 
and  Greek  with  sufficient  earnestness,  make  Hebrew  so 
hard,  write  so  many  verses,  and  the  like.  Enlightened 
times  !  If  the  fellow  had  only  written  about  the  man  in 
the  moon,  or  the  polar  bear  !  That  was  his  calling  ! 
Any  one  who  presumes  to  consider  our  times  enlightened 
again,  must  read  this  whole  work  as  a  penalty ;  and  he 
who  considers  them  enlightened  because  he  lives  in  them 
himself,  must  leai*n  it  all  by  heart." 

And  finally  one  more  extract,  from  a  review  of  a 
work  entitled,  "  A  Characterization  of  the  most 
refined  European  Nationalities.  In  Two  Parts." 
Leipzig. 

"  Character  of  refined  nations  !  Throw  the  coin  into 
the  crucible  if  you  wish  to  learn  its  worth.  From  the 
stamp  you  will  never  find  it  out  to  all  eternity.  What 
then  is  the  character  of  a  polished  nation?  What  else 
can  it  be  than  the  reflection  of  the  religion  and  the  civic 
constitution  in  which  a  nation  is  set ;  drapery,  regarding  ^ 


i^^.^; 


L^ 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  21 

which  the  most  that  one  can  say  is  how  it  may  fit  the 
nation.  Perchance  a  philosophic  observer  might  have 
produced  a  tolerable  characterization.  But  the  composer 
complacently  made  the  grand  tour  through  England, 
France,  Italy,  Spain,  Germany,  and  the  IS^etherlands, 
looked  into  his  PufFendorf,  talked  with  fine  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  and  took  his  book  and  wrote.  Unfortunately 
there  is  nothing  in  all  the  world  more  devious  than  fine 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  so  his  portrayals  were  also  out 
of  focus ;  the  Englishman  he  always  defends  against  the 
Frenchman ;  the  Frenchman  he  always  contrasts  with  the 
Englishman  ;  the  former  is  simply  frivolous,  the  latter 
simply  strong,  the  Italian  pompous  and  sedate,  the  Ger- 
man guzzling  and  counting  up  his  ancestors.  Everything 
by  hearsay,  on  the  surface,  an  abstract  of  '  good  society.' 
"And  this  he  calls  a  characterization!  What  differ- 
ent judgments  he  would  often  have  passed  if  he  had  con- 
descended to  view  the  man  in  the  midst  of  his  family, 
the  peasant  on  his  farm,  the  mother  among  her  children, 
the  journeyman  in  his  workshop,  the  honest  burgher  by 
his  tankard  of  beer,  and  the  scholar  and  merchant  in  his 
club  or  cafe  !  But  it  did  not  even  occur  to  him  that 
there  were  any  people  there  ;  or  if  it  did  occur  to  him, 
how  was  he  to  have  the  patience,  the  time,  the  conde- 
scension ]  To  him  all  Europe  was  a  fine  French  drama, 
or,  what  amounts  to  pretty  much  the  same  thing,  a 
puppet  play  !  He  peeped  in,  and  peeped  out  again,  and 
voila  tout  !  " 

An  important  and  perhaps  somewhat  neglected 
phase  of  Goethe's  earlier  years  is  his  attitude  in 
juatters  of  religion.     We  sometimes  hear  him  called 


22  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

"  the  great  Pagan,"  a  shallow  echo  of  the  reaction- 
ary romanticists  and  the  strict  ecclesiastics  of  sixty 
or  seventy  years  ago.  But  the  paganism  of  Goe- 
the, as  Heine  cleverly  says,  is  marvellously  modern- 
ized ;  and  if  the  middle  period  of  his  life  betrays  a 
drift  toward  classic  heathendom,  his  youth,  like  his 
old  age,  bears  the  stamp  of  strong  religious  views,  and 
a  faith  which  in  these  days  would  simply  be  termed 
liberal.  His  home  training  introduced  him  to  cate- 
chism and  dogma,  and  he  was  encouraged  to  report 
the  sermons  heard.  The  New  Testament  he  learned 
to  read  in  Greek,  and  the  Old  Testament  in  Hebrew. 
Stealthy  hours  were  devoted  to  memorizing  Klop- 
stock's  "Messias," — a  work  which  evidently  inspired 
one  of  his  earliest  efforts,  the  poem  on  Christ's  de- 
scent into  hell,  —  and  a  Biblical  epic  in  prose  was 
partly  accomplished.  Much  in  the  religious  life  of 
his  day,  and  some  peculiarities  of  the  official  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Church,  did  not  appeal  to  his  na- 
ture, nor  did  he  seem  to  possess  what  are  called 
"settled  convictions";  but  he  honored  the  sacra- 
ments, and  for  many  years  pursued  an  independent 
and  sober  study  of  the  Scriptures. 

A  previous  quotation  has  given  the  tendency  of 
his  thought  regarding  the  truths  of  revelation.  In  a 
criticism  of  the  history  of  Count  Struensee's  conver- 
sion, he  remarks  further :  — 

"  Of  the  worth  of  a  conversion,  God  alone  may  judge  ; 
God  alone  can  know  how  great  the  step  must  be  which 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  23 

the  soul  has  to  take  here  in  order  yonder  to  draw  near 
to  a  communion  with  him,  to  the  abode  of  perfection, 
and  to  the  intercourse  and  friendship  of  higher  beings. 
Thousands  of  open  and  secret  foes  of  rehgion  exist,  thou- 
sands who  wouki  have  loved  Christ  as  their  friend  if  he 
had  been  depicted  to  them  as  a  friend,  and  not  as  a  sullen 
tyrant,  ever  ready  to  crush  with  the  thunderbolt  where 
the  highest  perfection  is  not  found." 

Goethe's  youthful  standpoint  is  still  more  clearly 
indicated  in  a  short  publication,  dating  from  1771,  in 
the  form  of  a  letter  from  an  aged  pastor  to  liis  new 
colleague.  Some  people,  he  writes,  find  no  pleasure 
in  beinc:  Christians  unless  all  the  heathen  are  to  be 
roasted  forever ;  but  for  his  part  he  hurries  over  that 
doctrine  as  over  red-hot  iron.  He  has  grown  old  in 
contemplating  tlie  ways  of  the  Lord,  and  finds  that 
God  and  Love  are  synonymous.  He  has  no  ground 
for  doubting  any  one's  salvation  ;  it  is  enough  to 
believe  in  Divine  Love  revealed  in  Christ.  Contro- 
versy he  avoids ;' it  is  easier  to  hold  an  eel  by  the 
tail  than  a  sophist  with  reasons ;  the  divine  nature 
of  the  Bible  cannot  be  proven  if  it  be  not  felt; 
Augsburg  and  Dordrecht  make  as  little  essential  dif- 
ference in  the  religion  of  man  as  France  and  Ger- 
many in  bis  nature  ;  the  confession  of  faith  was  a 
formula  necessary  in  order  to  establish  something, 
but  leaves  him  his  Bible  ;  if  one  creed  comes  nearer 
the  Word  of  God  than  another,  so  much  the  better 
for  its  confessors ;  to  force  opinions  upon  one  is  cruel, 
but  to  require  that  one  must  feel  what  one  cannot 


24  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

is  tyrannous  nonsense.  Luther  labored  to  free  us 
from  spiritual  bondage,  yet  the  Eomish  Church  has 
preserved  much  of  divine  truth ;  suffer  it  to  be,  and 
give  it  your  blessing ! 

In  a  word,  the  essence  of  Goethe's  creed  was 
toleration. 

It  was  during  this  early  period  that  Goethe  be- 
came at  least  partially  familiar  with  the  writings 
of  Spinoza.  Herman  Grimm  ranks  the  latter  witli 
Homer,  Shakespeare,  and  Eaphael  as  one  of  the  four 
great  minds  wliich  had  a  lasting  effect  upon  Goe- 
the, regarding  them  as  representatives  of  Greece  and 
Eome,  with  all  the  treasures  which  those  names  im- 
ply and  include,  and  of  the  Germanic  and  Hebrew 
tradition.  Goethe  acknowledges  to  Eckermann,  in 
1831,  how  well  adapted  to  his  own  youthful  necessi- 
ties were  the  views  of  the  great  Jewish  thinker,  in 
whom  he  found  himself  Unable  to  distinguish  be- 
tween what  he  brought  to  Spinoza's  "Ethics"  and 
what  he  took  away,  it  was  yet  enough  for  Goethe 
that  he  there  discovered  tliat  which  calmed  his  emo- 
tions,— a  grand  and  open  survey  of  the  sensuous  and 
the  moral  world.  But  it  was  the  boundless  disinter- 
estedness of  the  contemplations  of  Spinoza  which 
specially  attracted  him,  as  well  as  the  lesson  of  re- 
nunciation, the  distinction  between  knowledge  and 
faith,  and  the  thought  of  the  unity  of  creation.  To 
these  contemplations  Goethe  repeatedly  recurred  in 
later  years,  and  in  his  old  age  the  "  Ethics "  was  still 
by  his  side. 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  25 

If  we  seek  for  traces  of  pantheistic  views  in 
Goethe's  writings,  we  are  at  first  embarrassed  by  the 
necessity  of  defining  the  term  Pantheism  itself.  Ac- 
cording to  a  recent  English  historian  of  this  sub- 
ject, (C.  E.  Plumptre,)  Pantheism,  in  the  generally 
accepted  meaning  of  the  word,  is  the  name  given  to 
that  system  of  speculation  which  identifies  the  uni- 
verse with  God.  This  explanation  presents  a  good 
working  definition,  allowing  the  author  to  trace  the 
presence  of  pantheistic  ideas  in  various  philosophic 
systems  from  ancient  times.  But  much  depends 
upon  the  manner  of  the  identification ;  and  in  his 
summary  and  conclusion  Mr.  Plumptre  becomes  more 
precise,  and  describes  the  form  of  pantheism  which 
he  has  been  discussing  as  that  which,  discarding 
anthropomorphism  on  the  one  hand,  and  naked  ma- 
terialism on  the  other,  conceives  God  to  be  a  Power, 
Eternal,  Infinite,  disclosing  itself  alike  through  every 
form  and  phenomenon  of  nature.  It  does  not  iden- 
tify God  with  perishable  matter ;  but  rather  con- 
ceives him  to  be  related  to  matter  somewhat  as  the 
soul  is  to  the  body.  More  concise  is  the  definition 
of  Dr.  Hedge :  "  God,  the  creative  and  ruling  power 
of  the  universe,  distinguished  by  reason  alone  from 
the  universe  itself."  In  this  sense  Goethe,  who  was 
the  last  remove  from  an  atheist,  viewing  the  Finite 
only  as  the  "  living  garment  "  of  the  Infinite,  will  be 
found  fully  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  Tennyson 
in  his  profound  and  beautiful  poem  styled  "The 
Higher  Pantheism." 


26  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

A  discussion   of  the   many  proofs   of  this  view 

which  Goethe's  works  afford,  would  carry  us  far  into 

Goethe's   manhood   and   old   age.      One   illustration 

only  may  perhaps  be   permitted,  from  the  "Proce- 

mion,"  in  1816  :  — 

"  Was  wiir'  ein  Gott,  der  nur  von  aussen  stiesse, 
Im  Kreis  das  All  am  Finger  laufen  liesse, 
Ihm  zieint's  die  Welt  im  Innem  zu  bewegen, 
Natur  in  sicli,  sicli  in  Natur  zu  liegen, 
So  dass,  was  in  ihm  lebt  und  webt  und  ist, 
Nie  seine  Kraft,  nie  seinen  Geist  vennisst." 

The  ante-Weimar  days  witness  only  the  beginnings 
of  Goethe's  growing  interest  in  Spinoza's  ethical  and 
pantheistic  theories,  and  of  the  irreconcilable  con- 
flict thereby  induced  between  Jacobi  and  himself ;  but 
we  are  able  to  pick  out  from  his  letters  and  reviews 
of  that  period,  from  "  Werther,"  and  from  those  por- 
tions of  "Faust"  which  evidence  an  early  origin, 
fragmentary  but  significant  passages  which  bear  wit- 
ness to  this  interest.  It  was  his  unfinished  drama 
of  "  Prometheus,"  indeed,  which,  containing  seeds  of 
Spinozism,  incidentally  occasioned  the  famous  col- 
loquy between  Lessing  and  Jacobi  upon  Spinoza, 
rousing  an  extended  controversy  regarding  Lessing's 
opinions ;  —  a  controversy  from  which  the  serious 
study  of  Spinoza,  and  the  important  philosophic 
conclusions  which  proceeded  from  that  study,  are 
considered  to  date. 

We  have  reserved  till  now  any  mention  of  the 
work  which  Goethe  is  said  to  have  rated  next  to 
"Faust,"  —  "Die  Leiden  des  jungen  Werthers." 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  27 

Shakespeare  has  been  quoted  by  Doctor  Bartol  as 
describing  the  phenomenon  of  sleep-walking  in  Lady 
Macbeth  better  than  any  modern  physiologist;  and 
recently  a  prominent  German  professor  of  psychiatry 
has  gravely  analyzed  Goethe's  work  as  an  accurate 
pathological  study  of  a  diseased  mind.     Werther  in- 
deed was  an  illustration,  somewhat  over-wrought,  of 
his  time.     He  is  the  super-sensitive  soul,  whom  the 
rough  world  only  bruises  instead  of  bracing.     Dis- 
appointment in  love,  combined  with  a  social  affront 
which  cripples  his  ambition,  proves  too  heavy  a  bur- 
den, and  he  turns  his  back  upon  the  world  and  seeks 
in  suicide  an  escape.     The  weak  side  of  Werther  — 
the  unhealthy  sentimentality  in  place  of  healthy  sen- 
timent—  is  specially  repugnant  to  the  present  age, 
which  is  schooled  to  control,  if  not  to  conceal,  its  emo- 
tions ;  and  although  the  pure  and  powerful  fancy,  the 
righteous  wrath  against  social  shams,  the  warm  affec- 
tion for  nature,  are  fascinating  traits  in  the  work  to 
this  day,  no  sound  mind  can  peruse  the  narration 
without  a  continuing  inward  remonstrance  and  im- 
patience.    This    feeling,   however,   extends    not    so 
much  to  Werther  as  a  creation  as  to  Werther  as  a 
character.     But  it  was  precisely  because  Wertherism 
was  then  so  common  a  psychological   phenomenon 
that  the  work  gained  so  enormous  a  success.     The 
mirror  was  held  up  to  human  nature,  and  the  distorted 
likeness  was  at  once  recognized.     The  personal  expe- 
riences upon  which  the  story  was  based  are  now  com- 
mon property,  and  it  will  scarcely  be  necessary  to 


28  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

describe  in  detail  the  framework  of  society  in  which 
the  story  is  set.  The  Storm  and  Stress  period  forms 
the  background,  a  period  whose  leading  characteristics 
indeed  are  peculiar  to  no  special  time  or  place.  In 
its  limited  application  to  the  last  third  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  in  Germany,  the  movement  which 
this  phrase  describes  was  a  general  revolt  against 
conventionality  and  the  restraints  of  oppressive 
authority,  both  in  society  and  in  letters.  Herder 
and  Goethe  are  the  leaders  in  literature,  the  for- 
mer as  a  pioneer  in  criticism,  the  latter  as  the 
embodiment  of  the  poetic  spirit.  Goethe  feels  the 
far-reaching,  penetrating  agitation,  and  through  his 
soul  quiver  and  thrill  the  subtle  and  potent  forces 
which  are  at  work  to  fashion  the  coming  era.  He 
gathers  up  the  tangled  threads  of  life,  and  weaves 
them  into  a  brilliant  tapestry  of  song  and  tale  and 
drama,  which  faithfully  depict  the  universal  fortunes 
of  mankind.  So  Goethe  required  first  experience 
before  he  might  poetically  create.  But  not  solely  in 
order  to  create.  He  was  receptive,  ardent,  impres- 
sionable, blending  warmth  of  heart  with  strength  of 
intellect.  To  the  younger  Goethe,  as  well  as  to  the 
elder  Goethe,  sweet  human  intercourse,  encourage- 
ment, and  sympathy  were  needful.  Solitude,  save  for 
brief  intervals,  he  could  not  suffer.  He  knew  little 
of  those  heights  of  loneliness  on  which  the  impatient 
soul  of  Lessing  was  so  often  forced  to  dwell.  For 
even  if  his  mental  outlook  was  far  wider  than  the 
glance  of  most  of  his  associates  could  comprise,  even 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  29 

if  he  had  often  to  endure  bitter  criticism  and  personal 
hostilities,  his  motives  and  his  aims  alike  misunder- 
stood, he  was  also  assured  of  ample  appreciation,  aid, 
and  applause. 

Thus  he  rounds  out  his  first  quarter  of  a  century. 
The  principal  features  of  his  youthful  prime  we  have 
here  endeavored  briefly  to  sketch,  indicating  the  vari- 
ous influences  which  shaped  or  modified  his  course, 
and  outlining  his  multifarious  mental  activity.  We 
have  found  him  in  his  youth  already  a  perfect  lyric 
poet;  for  all  that  follows, — the  luxuriant  elegiacs,  the 
fresh  and  natural  ballads,  the  splendid  harmonies  of 
"  Gott  und  Welt,"  the  tender,  melancholy  yearning  of 
Mignon,  the  melodious  Oriental  imageries,  the  elabo- 
rate elegies  of  Marienbad,  the  numberless  variations  of 
the  Faust  stanza,  —  is  but  a  differing  manifestation  of 
the  same  spirit ;  we  find  him  already  penning  a  warm 
and  vigorous  prose,  which,  pruned  and  perfected,  is  to 
become  the  standard  of  modern  German ;  we  find  him 
as  the  author  of  "Gotz"  already  vying  with  Klopstock 
in  arousing  a  national  sentiment  in  the  German  mind 
by  restoring  to  his  countrymen  a  consciousness  of 
their  manly  past;  as  an  essayist  and  reviewer,  we  find 
him  already  laboring  to  rebuke  vain  wordiness  and 
false  or  artificial  canons  of  taste,  to  unfetter  the  judg- 
ment and  to  awaken  a  catholic  sympathy ;  already  in 
"Werther"    . 

"  He  took  the  suffering  human  race, 
He  read  each  wound,  each  weakness  clear. 
And  struck  his  finger  on  the  place, 
And  said,  Thou  ailest  here  and  here." 


30  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

And  finally  his  masterpiece  of  "  Faust "  is  growing 
under  his  touch  and  gaining  some  of  its  rarest  pas- 
sages. Thus  endowed  with  this  potent  promise  of 
his  brilliant  past,  we  leave  him  at  Weimar,  on  the 
threshold  of  his  long  and  beneficent  career  in  that 
his  final  home. 


APPENDIX  TO    "GOETHE'S   YOUTH." 

In  order  to  convey  some  idea  of  the  peculiarities 
of  Goethe's  youthful  style,  the  exact  text  of  the 
letter  from  which  the  extract  on  page  6  has  been 
translated  is  here  given :  — 

An  Joh.  Jacob  Riese  in  Frankfurt, 

Leipzig  20.  Oktober  1764. 
Moigens  um  6. 
Riese,  guten  Tag  ! 

den  21.  Abends  um  5. 
Riese,  guten  Abend  ! 

Gestevn  hatte  ich  mich  kaum  liingesetzt  um  euch  eine 
Stunde  zu  widmen,  Als  schnell  ein  Brief  von  Horn  kam 
und  mich  von  meinem  angefangnen  Elate  hinweg  riss. 
Heute  werde  ich  auch  nicht  langer  bey  euch  bleiben. 
Ich  geh  in  die  Coramoedie.  "VVir  haben  sie  recht  schou 
hier.  Aber  dennoch  !  Ich  binn  unschliissig  !  Soil  ich 
bey  euch  bleiben  1  Soil  ich  in  die  Commodie  gehnl  — 
Ich  weiss  nicht !  Geschwind  !  Ich  will  wiirfeln.  Ja 
ich  habe  keiue  Wiirfel !  —  Ich  gehe  !     Lebt  wohl !  — 


GOETHE'S  YOUTH.  31 

Doch  halte  !  nein  !  ich  will  da  bleiben.  Morgen  kann 
ich  wieder  nicht  da  muss  ich  ins  Colleg,  und  Besuchen 
und  Abends  zu  Gaste.  Da  will  ich  also  jetzt  schreiben. 
Meldet  inir  was  ihr  fiir  ein  Leben  lebt?  Ob  ihr  mauch- 
mahl  an  mich  denkt.  Was  ihr  fiir  Professor  habt.  &, 
cetera  und  zwar  ein  langes  &  cetera.  Ich  lebe  hier,  wie 
—  wie  —  ich  weiss  selbst  nicht  recht  wie.  Doch  so 
ohngefahr 

So  wie  ein  Yogel,  der  auf  einera  Ast 

Im  schonsten  Wald,  sich,  Freilieit  athmend  wiegt. 

Der  ungestort  die  saiifte  Luft  geniesst. 

Mit  seinen  Fitticlien  von  Baum  zu  Baum 

von  Bussch  zu  Bussch  sich  singend  hinzuschwingen. 

Genug  stellt  euch  ein  Vbgelein,  auf  einem  griinen 
Aestelein  in  alien  seinen  Freuden  fiir,  so  leb  ich.  Heut 
hab  ich  angefangen  Collegia  zu  horen. 

Was  fur  1  —  1st  es  der  Miihe  wehrt  zu  fragen  1  Institu- 
tiones  imperiales.  Historiam  iuris.  Pandectas  und  ein 
privatissimum  iiber  die  7  ersten  und  7  letzten  Titel  des 
Codicis.  Denn  mehr  braucht  man  nicht,  das  iibrige 
vergisst  sich  doch.  Nein  gehorsamer  Diener !  das  lies- 
sen  wir  schon  unterwege.  — Im  Ernste  ich  habe  heute 
zwei  CoUegen  gehort,  die  Staatengeschichte  bey  Professor 
Bohmer,  und  bei  Ernesti  iiber  Cicerons  Gesprache  vom 
Redner.  Nicht  wahr  das  ging  an.  Die  andere  Woche 
geht  Collegium  philosophicum  et  mathematicum  an.  — 

Gottscheden  hab  ich  noch  nicht  gesehen.  Er  hat 
wieder  geheurathet.  Eine  Jfr.  Obristleutnantin.  Ihr 
wisst  es  doch,  Sie  ist  19  und  er  65  Jahr.  Sie  ist  4 
Schue  gross  und  er  7.  Sie  ist  mager  wie  ein  Haring  und 
er  dick  wie  ein  Federsack.  —  Ich  mache  hier  grosse 
Figur  !  —  Aber  noch  zur  Zeit  bin  ich  kein  Stutzer.     Ich 


32  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

werd  es  auch  niclit.  —  Ich  brauche  Kunst  um  fleissig  zu 

sein.     In  Gesellschaften,  Concert,  Comoedie,  bei  Gaste- 

reyen,    Abendessen,  Spazierfahrten   so  viel  es  nm  diese 

Zeit  angeht.     Ha !  das  geht  kostlich.     Aber  auch  kost- 

lich,  kostspielig.     Zum  Henker  das  fiihlt  mein  Beutel. 

Halt !  rettet !  haltet  auf !     Siehst  du  sie  nicht  mebr  flie- 

gen  ?    Da  marschierten  2  Louisdor.     Helft !  da  giug  eine. 

Himmel !  schon  wieder  ein  paar.     Groschen  die  sind  hier, 

wie  Kreuzer  bei  eucli  draussen  im  Reiche.  —  Aber  den- 

noch  kann  bier  einer  sehr  woblfeil  leben.     Die  Messe  ist 

herum.     Und  ich  werde  recht  menageus  leben.     Da  hofFe 

ich  des  Jahrs  mit  300  Rthr.  was  sage  ich  niit  200  Rthr. 

auszukommen.     NB.  das  nicht  mitgerechnet,  was  schon 

zum  Henker  ist.     Ich  habe  kostbaaren   Tissch.     Merkt 

einmahl  unser  Kiichenzettel.     Hiiner,  Gansse,   Truthah- 

nen,  Endten,  Rebhiiner,  Schnepfen,  Feldhiiner,  Forellen, 

Hassen,  Wildpret,  Hechte,  Fasanen,  Austern  u.  s.  w.      Das 

erscheinet  Taglich.     nichts  von  anderm  groben  Fleisch 

ut  sunt  Rind,  Kalber,  Hamel  u.  s.  w.  das  weiss  ich  nicht 

mehr  wie  es   schmeckt.     Und  die   Herrlichkeiten   nicht 

teuer,  gar  nicht  teuer.  —  Ich  sehe,  dass  mein  Blat  bald 

voll  ist  und  es  stehen  noch  keine  verse  darauf,  ich  habe 

deren  machen  woUen.     Auf  ein  andermahl.     Sagt  Keh- 

ren  dass  ich  ihm  schreiben  werde.     Ich  hore  von  Horn, 

dass  ihr  euch  ob  absentiam  puellarum  forma  elegantium 

beklagt.     Lasst  euch  von  ihm  das  Urteil  sagen  dass  ich 

liber   euch   fallete. 

Goethe. 

In  a  letter  to  bis  friend  Schon  born,  consul  in 
Algeria,  occurs  a  noteworthy  passage  in  turbulent 
praise  of  Herder:  — 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  33 

Frankfurt  am  8,  Jun.  [1774.] 

Herder  hat  ein  Werk  drucken  lassen :  Aelteste  Ur- 
Jcunde  des  Menschengeschlechts.  Ich  hielt  meinen  Brief 
inne  um  Ihnen  auch  Ihr  Theil  iibers  Meer  zu  schicken, 
noch.  aber  bin  ichs  nicht  im  Stande,  es  ist  ein  so  mystisch 
weitstrahlsinniges  Gauze,  eine  in  der  Fiille  verschlungener 
Geaste  lebende  und  rollende  Welt,  dass  weder  eine  Zeich- 
nung  nach  verjUngtem  Maasstab  einigen  Ausdruck  der 
Eiesengestalt  nachaffen,  oder  eine  treue  Silhouette  einzel- 
ner  Theile  melodisch  sympathetischen  Klang  in  der  Seele 
anschlagen  kann.  Er  ist  in  die  Tiefen  seiner  Empfindung 
hinabgestiegen,  hat  drinn  alle  die  hohe  heilige  Kraft  der 
simpeln  Natur  aufgewiihlt  und  fuhrt  sie  nun  in  dammern- 
dem,  wetterleuchtendem  hier  und  da  morgenfreundlich 
lachelnden,  Orphischen  Gesang  vom  Aufgang  herauf  iiber 
die  weite  Welt,  nachdem  er  vorher  die  Lasterbrut  der 
neuern  Geister,  De-  und  Atheisten,  Philologen,  Textver- 
besserer,  Orieutalisten  etc.  mit  Feuer  und  Schwefel  und 
Fluthsturm  ausgetilget ! 


Appended  is  a  sliort  bibliography  of  works  relating 
to  Goethe's  youth. 

General  Subject. 

Der  junge  Goethe.  Seine  Briefe  und  Dichtungen  von 
1764-1776.  Mit  einer  Einleitung  von  Michael  Bernays. 
3  Theile.     Leipzig,  1875. 

Goethe's  Dichtung  und  Wahrheit.  Mit  Einleitung 
und  Anmerkungen  von  G.  von  Loeper.  4  Theile.  Berlin, 
1879. 

3 


34  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

Briefe  uud  Aufsatze  von  Goethe  aus  den  Jahren  1766 
bis  1786.  Zum  erstenmal  herausgegeben  durch  A.  Scholl. 
Weimar,  1846. 

Deutschlauds  politische,  materielle  und  sociale  Zii- 
stande  im  Achtzehnten  Jahrhundert.  Von  Karl  Bieder- 
mann.     2  Bde.      Leipzig,  1854-1880. 

Geschichte  der  deutschen  Literatur  im  achtzehn- 
ten Jahrhundert.  Von  Hermann  Hettner.  3  BUcher. 
Zweite   Auflage.     Braunschweig,  1872. 

Goethe.  Vorlesungen  gehalten  an  der  Kgl.  Universifat 
zu  Berlin  von  Herman  Grimm.  Zweite  durchgesehene 
Auflage.  Berlin,  1880.  [Translated  by  Sarah  Holland 
Adams.     Boston  :  Little,  Brown,  &  Co.,  1881.] 

Goethe's  Leben  von  H.  Diintzer.  Leipzig,  1880.  [Trans- 
lated by  T.  W.  Lyster.  Macmillau,  London,  1883,  and 
Estes  and  Lauriat,  Boston.] 

Goethe  in  den  Jahren  1771  bis  1775.  Von  Bernhard 
Eudolf  Abeken.     Zweite  Auflage.      Hannover,  1865. 

Werther  und  seine  Zeit.  Zur  Goethe-Literatur.  Von 
J.  W.  AppeU.     Neue  Ausgabe.     Leipzig,  1865. 

Aus  Goethes  Frlihzeit.  Von  Wilhelm  Scherer.  [Quel- 
len  uud  Forschungen  xxxiv.]     Strassburg,  1879. 

Goethe's  Werther  und  seine  Zeit.  Eine  psychiatrisch- 
litterarische  Studie  von  Prof.  Dr.  Ludwig  Wille.  Basel, 
1877. 

Herder. 

Herder  nach  seinem  Leben  und  seinen  Werken  darge- 
stellt  von  R.  Haym.     1.  Bd.     Berlin,  1877. 

Herders  Lebensbild.  Sein  chronologisch-geordneter 
Briefwechsel.  Herausgegeben  von  seinem  Sohne.  3  Bde. 
Erlangen,  1846. 


GOETHE'S   YOUTH.  35 

Aus  Herders  Nachlass.  3  Bde.  Frankfurt  am  Main, 
1857-1858. 

Herder.  By  Karl  Hillebrand.  IST.  A.  Review,  July  and 
October,  1872,  April,  1873.  Vol.  CXV.  pp.  104-138, 
235-287,  389-424.  (Eeprinted  in  part  as  Monograph 
IV.     Bangor,  Me.) 

Friederilce  Brion. 

Der  junge  Goethe.     (Letters  and  Poems  in  Vol.  T.) 
Dichtung  und  Wahrheit.     (Books  10,  11,  and  12.) 
Friederike  Brion  von  Sessenheim.     Geschichtliche  Mit- 
theilungen   von   Phil.  Ferd.  Lucius,    Pfarrer   in  Sessen- 
heim.    Strassburg,  1877. 

Friederike  Brion  von  Sesenheim.  (1752-1813.)  Eine 
chronologisch  bearbeitete  Biographic  nach  neuem  Mate- 
rial aus  dem  Lenz-Nachlasse.  Von  P.  Th.  Falck.  Ber- 
lin,  1884. 

Deutsche  Rundschau,  I^ovember,  1878,  pp.  218-226  : 
Wallfahrt  nach  Sesenheim.     Von  Heinrich  Kruse. 

Goethe's    Youthful  Reviews. 

Der  junge  Goethe.     A^ol.  IT.  pp.  405-504. 

Studien  iiber  Goethe  von  Professor  Wilhelm  Scherer  in 
Berlin.  Der  junge  Goethe  als  Journalist.  [In  the 
Deutsche  Rundschau,  October,  1878,  pp.  62-74.] 

Goethe's  Religious   Vieivs. 

"Der  junge  Goethe"  and  "Dichtung  und  Wahrheit," 
2yassim. 

■   [For  the  later  period,  see  his  works  in  general.     ISTote 
specially  Sarah  Austin's  "  Characteristics  of  Goethe  :  from 


36  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

the  German  of  Falk,  von  Miiller,  etc.,"  (3  vols^  London, 
1849,)  Vol.  I.  pp.  65-103.  Also,  "  Gesprache  mit  Goethe 
m  den  letzten  Jahren  seines  Lebens.  Von  J.  P.  Ecker- 
mann.  Sechste  Auflage.  (Edited  by  Diintzer.)  In  drei 
Theilen."  (Leipzig,  1885.)  IL  30,  100-101,  200  ;  IIL 
253-258.  In  John's  translation,  pp.  54-55  (passage 
suppi§s:s^^by  traiislatpr),  411-412,  524-525,  566-570.] 

Goethe's  Stellung^m  Christenthnm.  Von  Julian 
Schmidt.  (In  the  Goethe-Jahrbuch,  IL,  1881,  pp.  49- 
64.) 

Der  Gang  der  Kirche  in  Lebensbildern  dargestellt  von 
K.  Fr.  Aug.  Kahnis.  Leipzig,  1881.  (pp.  410-426: 
Goethe  und  das  Christenthnm.) 

Goethes  religiose  Entwickelung  bis  zum  Jahre  1775. 
Von  E.  Fr.  A.  Jobst.      (Programm.)     Stettin,  1877. 

Spinoza  and  Pantheism. 

Benedicti  de  Spinoza  Opera  quae  supersunt  omnia.  3 
vols,  and  supplementary  vol.  (1862).     Lipsise,  1843. 

[Spinoza's  Works  are  translated  into  English  in  the 
Bohn  series.] 

Spinoza's  Ethic.  Translated  by  W.  H.  White.  Lon- 
don, 1883. 

Spinoza,  his  Life  and  Philosophy.  By  Frederick  Pol- 
lock.    London,  1880. 

Ways  of  the  Spirit,  and  other  Essays.  By  F.  H. 
Hedge.     Boston,  1877.     [pp.  252-284  :  Pantheism.] 

General  Sketch  of  the  History  of  Pantheism.  By  C.  E. 
Plumptre.     2  vols.     London,  1881. 

SchoU,  (w.  supra,)  pp.  193-229. 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  37 


II. 

GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE. 

By  JOHN  ALBEE. 

The  theory  of  education  at  present  is  to  offer  an 
all-embracing  outline  of  studies,  from  which  every 
talent  may  select,  may  specialize  itself,  and  receive 
its  appropriate  training.     Universal  culture,  that  is, 
knowing  or  affecting  a  variety  of  intellectual  inter- 
ests, is  not  now  much  encouraged,  and  is  seldom  mar- 
ketable.    Even  the  phrases,   "  a   great  scholar,"   "  a 
learned  man,"  have  ceased  to  carry  their  ancient  sig- 
nificance.    And   the   opponents   of  classical  studies 
would  say  it  is  well  it  is  so ;  for  the  terms  meant  an 
acquaintance  with  Greek  and  Latin  and  the  contents 
of  libraries  merely.     Scholar,  learned   man,  do   not 
well  describe  the  modern  proficient,  their  successor, 
whose  claim  and  place  can  be  exactly  defined  when 
one   inquires,   "  What   does  he   know  ? "     This   was 
sometimes  a  difficult  question  to  answer  in  the  case 
of  the  former  class,  when  one  praised  them  and  pro- 
voked  curiosity  and   inquiry.     The   answer  was   as 
vague  and  general  as  the  supposed  accomplishments. 
Universal  culture  we  no  longer  encourage  in  the  indi- 
vidual ;  in  the  accumulation  of  studies,  in  their  clear 


38  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

demarkations  and  the  demand  for  thoroughness,  there 
is  required  a  more  or  less  close  following  of  par- 
ticular lines.  Universal  culture  must  now  be  con- 
fined in  meaning  to  the  possibilities,  or  opportunities, 
embraced  within  the  plans  and  under  the  teachers 
everywhere  offered,  and  to  their  distributed  results. 
The  education  now  most  insisted  upon  is  that  which 
qualifies  a  man  to  maintain  himself  by  his  usefulness 
to  others,  —  to  possess  and  to  be  able  to  apply  that 
knowledge  which  has  its  practical  value  and  its  equiv- 
alent money  value,  like  any  other  commodity.  |  You 
may  know  too  little  to  be  wanted  anywhere  by  any- 
body ;  and  you  may  know  too  much  to  meet  the 
wants  of  sagacious  employers. , 

The  bounds  of  knowledge  —  to  sum  up  what  has 
been  said  and  to  make  clearer  what  follows  —  have 
been  so  extended,  and  the  demand  for  application  is 
so  strenuous,  that  only  by  devotion  to  one  single  de- 
partment can  a  man  hope  for  any  degree  of  complete- 
ness or  usefulness. 

At  the  same  time,  this  accomplishment  in  one 
thing,  with  its  professional  or  private  application, 
gives  to  its  disciple  a  limited  development  which 
is  not  in  harmony  with  the  highest  philosophical  or 
spiritual  revelations  of  the  being  and  aim  of  man. 
For  man  is  a  unit,  a  whole,  in  himself,  whatsoever 
component  place  he  may  consent  to  fill  temporarily 
and  with  a  detached  portion  of  his  being.  He  wishes 
to  know  all,  grasps  at  all.  He  can  learn  all ;  but  he 
can  teach,  can  communicate,  only  a  part.     Now  aU 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  39 

that  which  cannot  be  taught,  but  which  every  earnest, 
striving  spirit  wishes  to  know  and  succeeds  in  know- 
ing through  his  own  power  and  will,  and  in  his  own 
way,  that  is,  as  his  genius  guides  him,  I  call  self- 
culture.     And  inasmuch  as  I  speak  of  Goethe's  self- 
culture,  I  am  anxious  that  my  definition  should  be 
considered,  in  a  peculiar   manner,  as   applicable   to 
him,  for  it  has  grown  out  of  a  study  of  his  life  and 
activities.     I  hope  it  is  capable  of  generalization,  and 
useful  to  every  one  who  has  taken  his  education,  his 
cultivation,  into  his  own  hands ;  but  it  is  beyond 
the  scope  of  this  paper  to  make  applications  and 
draw   the   obvious   moral.      It   is   simply   the   way 
which  one  man,  already  by  natural  endowment  great, 
found  to  supplement  a  usual  education,  such  as  was 
available  in  his  youth,  to  pass  from  known  and  dis- 
covered ground  to  original,  and  to  satisfy  the  impulse 
of  his  genius.     Nor  do  I  wish  to  lower  or  confuse  the 
definition   of  self-culture,  by  connecting   it  in   any 
manner  with  the  history  or  experience  of  those  com- 
monly called  self-educated  men,  of  whom  we  have 
enough  and  hear  enough ;  men  who  struggle  up  out 
of  the  masses,  and  who  are  sufficiently  honored  and 
wondered  at  for  their  striving   and   their   triumph. 
Self-culture  as  now  to  be  considered  must  be  held  up 
and  measured  upon  the  Goethean  plan ;   and  as  the 
sermon  ever  and  anon  comes  back  to  its  text  and  the 
sons  to  its  refrain,  so  must  we  to  the  definition,  which 
is  to  be  the  clue  in  studying  one  chief  characteristic 
of  Goethe:   all  that   which  cannot  be  taught,  but 


40  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

which  every  earnest,  striving  spirit  wishes  to  know 
and  succeeds  in  knowing  through  his  own  power  and 
will  and  in  his  own  way,  —  that  is,  as  his  genius 
guides  him,  —  is  self-culture ;  and  Goethe  is  the 
eminent  and  peculiar  example  of  it,  and  of  its  most 
extraordinary  results. 

It  is  hard  to  keep  hold  of  Goethe  as  a  whole,  he 
turns  himself  in  so  many  different  directions.  And 
who  is  competent  to  estimate  a  man  who  was  poet, 
novelist,  art  critic,  translator,  editor,  lawyer  and  coun- 
cillor of  state,  dramatist,  stage  manager  and  actor, 
the  most  voluminous  correspondent  we  know  of,  — 
over  nine  thousand  letters  known  to  be  now  procura- 
ble, and  one  half  of  them  already  published, — besides 
his  special  scientific  pursuits  in  botany,  mineralogy, 
anatomy,  and  optics  ?  To  some  of  these  departments 
he  added  valuable  contributions ;  in  some  he  made 
original  discoveries,  and  his  literary  work  has. become 
already  the  property  of  mankind.  All  the  while, 
as  we  read  his  life  as  known  to  the  persons  among 
whom  he  moved,  his  diaries  and  letters,  we  are  struck 
with  the  attention  and  time  bestowed  on  private  and 
official  concerns,  which  could  leave  no  profitable  re- 
sults, and  which  would  seem  to  interfere  with  the 
concentration  requisite  for  enduring  performances. 
But  for  the  explanation  of  the  amount  and  quality 
of  his  literary  legacy,  we  must  study  his  character- 
istic literary  methods ;  and  in  addition,  remember 
his  fortunate  circumstances  and  his  long  life,  pro- 
ductive to  the  end. 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  41 

It  is  claimed,  and  it  is  a  valid  claim,  that  Goe- 
the's life  and  work  make  an  epoch  in  world  history. 
Whether  we  know  it  or  not,  we  now  see  through  his 
eyes  when  we  come  to  certain  points  in  our  studies 
and  experiences.     And  although  unable,  and  indeed 
incompetent,  as  most  men  are,  to  follow  and  appre- 
ciate the  whole  range  of  his  contributions,  yet  any 
interested  and   careful   reader   can   feel   everywhere 
the  Goethean  characteristic  in  his  style  and  method ; 
and,  more  than  all,  in  the  comprehensive  sweep  of 
his  mind,  which  looks  out  upon  things  in  a  large, 
infinite  way,  gathering  as  it  labors  on  vast  materials,    ' 
overflowing  in  almost  every  instance  the  receptacle 
he  had  planned  for  them.     He  was  almost  too  great 
and  active  a  man  to  be  a  writer ;  it  is  condescension 
in   him   to   write.     After   the   Frankfort   period,  he 
needed  urging   to   prepare  anything  for   print.     He 
was  indebted  to  his  friends,  and  esj)ecially  to  Schiller, 
for  stimulation  in  this  direction.     He  loved  to  accu- 
mulate, to  sketch  out  plans,  to   read  to  friends   an 
incompleted  design,  and  then  put  it  away  for  more 
light.     Thus  all   his  work   seems  a   means  to  some 
other  end,  —  a  preparation, — an  exploring  expedition, 
returning  with  abundant  results,  but  how  to  be  finally 
distributed   and   arranged,  somewhat  in  doubt;  and 
in  fact  it  is  lucky  if  anything  more  than  a  roof  is 
erected  over  them.     Much  appears  to  be  unfinished, 
fragmentary,  all  sorts  of  things  interjected  between 
the  covers  of  his  books ;  and  this  not  from  want  of 
good   structural  idea,   but  either  because   of   some 


42  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

difficulty  in  keeping  within  its  limits,  or  because  he 
found  no  conventional  literaiy  form  quite  adapted  to 
his  peculiar  genius.  So  he  overflows  in  all  his  longer 
works ;  yet  in  his  shorter  is  perfectly  restrained  and 
unified. 

It  was  especially  hard  for  Goethe  to  bring  any  of 
his  more  important  books  to  end,  because  his  accu- 
mulations were  so  large  and  continuous,  and  because 
he  filled  his  writing  with  his  life,  which  flowed  on, 
and  could  only  be  complete  by  the  arrest  of  life. 
It  must  also  be  remembered  that  he  waited  upon 
his  moods,  and  was  not  independent  of  physical 
aids  and  hindrances.  He  used  wine  and  love  as 
stimulants,  but  not  tobacco.  He  consulted  the  ba- 
rometer to  know  the  weather  in  his  brain ;  and  he 
knew  what  seasons,  sleep,  diet,  change,  and  music 
could  do  for  the  mind.  However,  there  comes  a  time 
when  we  can  no  more  rely  upon  these  charming 
coadjutors.  The  problem  came  to  the  aged  Goethe 
how  to  complete  works  which  for  the  most  part  had 
been  thrown  off  in  periods  when  his  genius  was  sus- 
ceptible to  outward  influences,  responding  involun- 
tarily and  warmly.  His  solution  was  that  by  which 
most  men  are  obliged  to  labor  from  beginning  to  end, 
namely,  to  finish  what  needed  finishing  by  energy 
and  resolution,  no  longer  waiting  upon  Muse  and 
season.  Still  we  must  say  that  in  much  of  Goethe's 
work  there  were  additions  rather  than  completions, 
and  it  marks  a  characteristic  trait,  the  cause  of  which 
we   have   already   indicated.     The   Second  Part   of 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  43 

"  Faust "  is  a  completion,  but  not  a  dramatic  comple- 
tion ;  it  is  a  religious  reinvestment  of  the  whole  con- 
ception. The  Second  Part  of  "Wilhelm  Meister" 
follows  vaguely  and  in  a  lower  atmosj)here  the  same 
lines ;  nothing  is  brought  to  an  issue  after  the  manner 
of  ordinary  fiction.  In  Goethe  was  the  extraordinary 
sense  of  the  progressive  character  of  all  that  concerns 
human  life ;  it  appears  as  merely  succession  oftenest ; 
and  in  either  case  the  highest  art  must  deal  with  it 
as  without  limitations.  No  end  is  conceivable  to  it, 
but  only  transitions.  Thus  while  Goethe  lived  the 
period  could  be,  and  generally  was,  changed  into  a 
semicolon  ;  whatsoever  conclusion,  it  was  provisional ; 
ceaseless  self-culture  added  chapter  after  chapter, 
rewrote,  inserted  missing  leaves,  and  gave  to  the  god 
Terminus  feet  and  arms.  There  should  be  a  dash  at 
the  end  of  most  of  his  writings,  to  signify  that  he 
was  interrupted,  or  was  waiting  for  more  light,  a 
new  experience,  a  fresh  impulse.  This  intellectual 
exuberance  was  in  part  the  fruit  of  a  habit  of  self- 
culture,  which  accompanied  step  by  step  the  writings 
given  to  the  public. 

The  creative  power  in  him  seems  to  have  been 
exactly  commensurate  with  the  opportunities  of  self- 
culture  ;  and  in  the  latter  we  must  include,  besides 
various  studies,  all  kinds  of  personal  contacts,  expe- 
riences, and  employments.  These  came  forth  again 
as  images,  characters,  or  generalizations,  in  poetry  or 
prose,  and  tantalize  us  at  once  with  their  likeness 
and  unlikeness  to  their  originals.     And  it  may  be 


44  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

noticed  in  passing  that  he  appears  to  reveal  most  of 
the  germs  out  of  which  grew  his  literary  works.  It 
is  true  he  was  a  little  fond  of  mystification  con- 
cerning them,  and  himself,  doubtless,  as  we  all  do, 
connected  the  image  created  independently  in  the 
mind  with  some  material,  actual  counterpart  sub- 
sequently. This,  otherwise,  is  to  give  to  what  we 
call  real  existences,  facts,  or  even  experiences,  too 
much  credit.  These  have  no  creative  power;  the 
mind,  the  imagination,  create  them.  We  may  admit 
only  this :  that  the  relation  of  Goethe's  creations  to 
their  originals,  or  beginnings,  is  similar  to  the  genesis 
of  life.  There  is  a  cell  of  some  sort ;  it  little  resem- 
bles the  final  form  of  independent  being,  which  at 
any  other  stage  than  this  is  perishable. 

Goethe  was  a  realist  in  a  certain  distinguishing 
sense ;  that  is,  there  must  be  for  him  firm  realities, 
but  such  as  were  intimately  interwoven  with  his  own 
life.  He  hated  the  vague,  the  subjective,  and  that 
which  attempted  to  make  something  out  of  nothing. 
He  strove  for  such  a  universal  expression  as  could 
not  be  literally  interpreted,  but  so  flexible  as  to  have 
in  it  a  manifold  adaptation.  In  some  degree,  favored 
by  the  German  intellectual  tendency  to  minute  and 
critical  study  of  masterpieces,  he  achieved  in  a  short 
space  that  which  time  and  chance  have  given  his 
compeers.  Homer,  Dante,  and  Shakespeare,  —  the  pos- 
sibility of  many  meanings  and  many  applications. 
He  founded  himself  upon  the  internal  real ;  so  that 
his  realism  differs  greatly  from  that  which  among  some 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  45 

writers  is  practised  and  championed  in  our  time. 
They  claim  to  give  us  pictures  of  life  as  it  is,  still 
callino:  their  work  fiction.  Nothinjr  that  does  actu- 
ally,  literally  exist,  is  worthy  of  portraiture.  "The 
spirit  of  the  real  is  the  true  ideal " ;  and  this  alone 
is  all  that  man  recognizes  and  cherishes  forever. 

Tliere  is,  however,  a  deeper  objection  than  this  to 
the  surface  realism  of  our  present  literary  art.  In 
the  moral  world,  as  in  the  natural,  we  shall  not  go 
far  wrong,  if  we  seek  for  truth  and  reality  in  the 
direct  opposite  of  what  appears.  The  apparent  is 
something  adjusted  to  the  measure  of  the  senses. 
Although  Goethe  laid  strong  hold  of  this  apparent, 
there  was  for  once  a  man  who  turned  it,  not  half  or 
quarter,  but  clear  round,  and  saw  the  other,  the  real 
spirit,  or  ideal  face. 

He  turned  the  plant  clear  round,  and  discovered 
its  secret,  the  law  of  its  life.  And  as  ever  appear- 
ances are  confusing,  while  the  reality  is  simple  and 
satisfying,  so  now  botany,  which,  wlien  one  looks 
into  a  text-book  or  upon  a  garden  of  flowers,  is  the 
most  bewildering  of  studies,  becomes  by  Goethe's 
discovery  as  clear  and  beautiful  as  a  remembered  sin- 
gle line  of  perfect  poetry.  In  fact  it  is  poetic ;  and 
it  distinguishes  nearly  all  of  his  scientific  investiga- 
tion that  it  is  resolved  into  poetry.  He  is  the  first 
modern  man  who  has  well  succeeded  in  workincj  this 
transformation ;  thus  restoring  for  us  the  manner  of 
the  most  ancient  natural  philosophers,  who  rendered 
everything   in  verse.     It  seems   to  have  been  his 


46  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

aim  in  natural  science  to  satisfy  the  desire  for  a 
productive  thought,  —  one  that  should  be  a  further 
means  of  self-cultivation.  His  investigations  in  oste- 
ology resulted  in  nearly  the  same  law  as  in  botany,  — 
a  simple  principle  on  which  the  structure  of  animals 
and  plants  is  built  up  alike.  What  is  its  value  ? 
Chieilv  to  the  imagination  in  man.  There  is  no  final 
good  in  scientific  discoveries  unless  they  furnish  us 
something  beyond  the  useful ;  this  also  lias  its  value, 
but  not  the  entire.  As  Goethe  himself  said,  "  What- 
ever is  useful  is  only  a  part  of  what  is  significant." 
When  a  simple,  pregnant  generalization,  like  Goethe's 
in  botany,  is  given  us,  we  are  not  hindered  by  default 
of  technical  knowledge  from  the  highest  possible  per- 
ception of  the  central  idea  in  the  plant  world.  We 
no  more  stand  before  the  simplest  flower  ashamed  of 
our  ignorance  because  we  cannot  call  it  by  name ;  or 
when  we  can,  satisfied  with  our  knowledge.  But 
there  is  now  freedom  for  the  imagination,  and  an 
invitation  to  reflection.  Then  truly  pansies  will  be 
for  thoughts ;  and  the  "  flower  in  the  crannied  wall " 
will  answer,  not  what  God  and  man  is,  but  as  much 
as  it  knows  about  itself.  And  though  some  flowers 
recommend  themselves  by  their  beauty  or  rarity,  and 
others  by  their  commonness,  and  some  even  because 
they  are  fashionable,  all  of  them,  when  we  are  ac- 
quainted with  the  law  of  their  inward  being,  help  us 
to  draw  nearer  to  the  spiritual  symbols  and  resem- 
blances which  connect  each  province  of  nature  with 
every  other,  and  all  with  man. 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  47 

Goethe  teaches  us  after  a  method,  and  to  a  point 
where  we  can  teach  ouVselves.  In  every  direction  to 
which  he  turned  his  mind,  this  is  one  of  his  chief 
merits,  that  he  takes  you  where  you  can  go  alone  if 
you  will.  This  makes  him  for  adults,  for  poets  and 
writers  especially,  the  most  helpful  master  that  has 
ever  lived.  .  How  lie  becomes  so  is  easy  to  see  ;  it 
is  because  he  is  trying  to  teach  himself;  in  short, 
we  come  again  upon  his  self-culture  as  the  fruit- 
ful source  of  his  achievements  and  influence.  His 
studies  and  investigations  were  private,  unprofes- 
sional, with  no  worldly  or  ulterior  aim.  What  he 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  Makaria  in  "  Wilhelm  Meis- 
ter's  Travels  "  expresses  his  habit  very  nearly  :  "  We 
do  not  want  to  establish  anything,  or  to  produce  any 
outward  effect,  but  only  to  enlighten  ourselves." 
When  therefore  Goethe,  a  man  of  ample  acquire- 
ments and  genius,  sits  down  to  study  something  that 
he  wishes  to  know,  and  gives  us  not  only  the  results, 
but  the  steps  and  the  method  of  his  effort,  he  be- 
comes a  great  teacher. 

Yet  we  do  not  wish  to  follow  any  master  too  far ; 
he  is  the  best  who  leads  us  from  himself  to  self- 
reliance.  A  man  needs  many,  to  whose  influence  he 
can  surrender  himself,  and  recover  himself  again  and 
again.  In  Goethe's  self-cultivation  it  is  striking  how 
often  he  meets  with  persons  and  objects,  and  gives 
himself  up  to  them  until  he  has  learned  all  they 
have  to  impart  which  can  help  him,  or  discovers 
his  own  false  tendency  or  position.     Then  he  aban- 


48  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

dons  them  without  regret  or  apology.  Witliont  re- 
gret, except  the  poetic,  insjDiriiig  regrets  of  his  love 
affairs,  which  cannot  be  omitted  from  the  account  of 
the  sources  and  circumstances  of  his  inward  culture. 
In  these  there  were  usually  two  productive  phases 
or  periods  ;  one  while  elevated  by  passion,  the  other 
when  tormented  by  remorse.  It  is  said  by  H.  Grimm 
that  Margaret  grew  out  of  the  latter.  But  usually 
he  had  no  time  or  taste  for  repenting  himself  of  any- 
thing that  had  happened.  In  his  self-complacent 
way  he  foresaw  compensation,  and  was  not  afflicted 
to  know  all  sides  of  himself,  the  weak,  tlie  strong,  the 
excellent,  and  the  evil.  He  confessed  that  his  striv- 
ing to  become  an  artist  was  a  mistake,  but  added 
that  mistakes  also  give  us  insight.  This  calm,  quite 
superhuman  characteristic  has  prejudiced  many  good 
people  against  Goethe ;  tliey  think  that  he  sacrificed 
everybody  to  his  own  selfish  purposes.  The  French 
call  love  the  egoism  of  two ;  but  some  say  Goethe's 
love  was  still  no  more  than  that  of  one,  —  self-love, 
in  short. 

One  of  the  essential  contrasts  between  Goethe  and 
most  literary  creators  —  let  us  say,  for  instance,  our 
own  Shakespeare  —  is  that  Goethe  found  his  mate- 
rial, his  suggestions,  his  impulse,  in  his  own  expe- 
riences ;  while  Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries, 
and  also  the  greater  Greek  poets,  take  what  has  hap- 
pened to  others  as  the  primary  motive  of  their  work. 
Goethe  embodies  states  of  feeling,  workings  of  the 
intellect ;   consequently  they  have  not   that  chai-ac- 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  49 

teristic  or  historical  consistency  which  is  common 
among  other  creators.  I  venture  to  call  their  con- 
sistency ideal ;  and  I  would  refer  its  manifestations 
more  to  the  personality  of  Goethe  than  to  that  of  the 
characters  themselves,  which  in  most  works  of  the 
imagination  are  made  effective  by  sliarply  drawn 
limitations.  I  do  not  know  a  character  of  Goethe's 
that  stands  for  much  more  than  his  mouthpiece ;  that 
one  thinks  of  as  a  person,  as  in  the  creations  of 
many  even  inferior  novelists  and  dramatists.  In 
truth,  one  may  say,  —  or  perhaps  here  it  is  better  to 
inquire  whether  nearly  all  the  most  famous  char- 
acters of  poets  and  dramatists  have  not  something 
vague  and  impersonal  about  them ;  while  it  is  left  to 
the  inferior  to  come  before  us  with  their  impressive, 
although  very  limited  personality.  The  great  are 
great  without  being  peculiar,  and  indeed  by  contrasts 
to  it ;  they  fill  a  great  place,  symbolize  the  total 
conception,  and  must  be  drawn  with  a  few  and  the' 
simplest  lines ;  while  about  them  move  all  manner 
of  subordinates,  of  narrower  yet  more  striking  idio- 
syncrasies. It  is  these  latter  we  make  ourselves  free 
with ;  they  pass  into  proverb,  yes,  into  language,  and 
have  the  honor  to  become  nouns  and  adjectives. 

Goethe  wrote  in  the  modern  temple,  where  all  the 
Muses  were  real  women.  He  transformed  them  back 
to  their  ancient  estate.  This  his  temple  was  of  glass, 
so  that  the  transformation  could  be  seen,  the  original 
clay  be  detected  after  it  was  winged.  Doubtless 
other  poets,  liis  predecessors  and  compeers,  also  drew 


50  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

mucli  out  of  their  own  lives,  fashioning  their  crea- 
tions out  of  real,  present  images ;  but  it  is  concealed 
from  us  by  our  meagre  information  concerning  their 
personal  history  and  character.  In  Goethe's  case  all 
is  open,  all  is  revealed,  by  his  own  disclosures  and 
innumerable  testimonies.  We  know  the  avidity  of 
the  public  concerning  everything  which  connects 
personal  affairs  with  a  poem  or  story,  —  its  liability  to 
mistake,  and  its  haste  to  censure  ;  and  as  the  world 
is  full  of  literalists,  as  well  as  of  those  who  conceive 
of  all  as  if  existing  in  the  present  and  among  them- 
selves, forgetful  that  every  age  "  determines  and  fash- 
ions both  the  willing  and  unwilling,"  they  hear  of 
Goethe's  relations  to  his  time,  to  its  persons,  ideas 
on  religion  and  politics,  with  some  scruples  of  con- 
science ;  their  most  serious  charge  being  that  he 
immolated,  and  then  dissected,  living,  loving  human 
beings  for  the  purposes  of  literary  art.  It  should  be 
remembered  that,  so  far  as  Goethe's  own  confessions 
are  summoned  against  him,  they  cannot  be  fully  ad- 
mitted ;  for  he  did  not  confess  himself  in  print  until 
the  matter  which  entered  into  it  had  become  poetry 
in  its  first  stage.  He  used  it  over  and  over,  and 
gave  it  endless  additions  and  transformations.  In 
truth,  the  literal  experience,  the  actual  fact,  do  not 
exist  for  a  moment,  or  but  just  a  moment,  in  his 
mind. 

In  his  first  attempt  at  verse,  when  he  was  in  love 
with  Gretchen,  he  says  he  first  "  mystified  himself." 
You  cannot  detect  him  writing  anywhere  except  sym- 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  51 

bolically.  Thus,  in  working  the  chief  miracle  given 
man  to  perform  in  his  earthly  life,  the  changing 
the  water  which  he  draws  out  of  the  common  reser- 
voirs into  the  wine  of  song  and  story,  Goethe  had  a 
wonderful,  almost  supernatural  power.  In  tracing 
back  this  gift,  it  becomes  clear  that  it  grew  out  of 
bis  genius  for  self-culture.  We  can  observe  that  it 
had  a  twofold  or  reciprocal  character,  not  uncommon 
to  all  men,  but  in  the  highest  degree  to  him ;  namely, 
being  taught  by  his  own  faculties,  unconsciously  at 
first,  and  then  in  return  consciously  and  earnestly 
teaching  them.  It  may  be  said,  that  when  a  man 
arrives  at  the  latter  stage,  he  is  free ;  he,  by  the  same 
means,  liberates  others;  he  becomes  a  self-deter- 
mined being,  and  can  wholly  exterminate  what  is 
obstructive  in  himself,  and  perfect  what  is  productive 
and  best.  This  consciousness  becomes  distinct  grad- 
ually ;  and  the  interesting  point  in  Goethe's  intellect- 
ual history  is  to  observe  its  development. 

But  now  what  shall  we  say  on  behaK  of  those 
lovely,  and,  as  some  think,  wronged  ladies,  sacrificed 
to  make  the  images  of  Gretchen,  OttiUe,  Iphigenia, 
Sulieka,  who  now  seem  to  have  an  independent 
being  ?  Were  Friederika,  Lottie  Buff,  Lillie  Schone- 
man.  Von  Stein,  and  the  others,  but  the  rough  stone 
in  which  sleeps  the  statue  ?  or  did  they  breathe, 
suffer,  feel  the  chisel  and  polisher  of  the  artist  ?  And 
which  endured  most,  they  or  Goethe  himself  ?  It  is 
permitted  to  women  to  heal  themselves  by  sensible 
attachments  and  marriage,  which  all  seem  to  have 


52  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

done,  with  one  exception ;  while  he  poetized  his  woes. 
It  is  too  much  to  expect  of  every  man  that  he  shall 
commit  suicide  to  show  that  he  was  in  earnest  in 
love.  Yet  I  know  of  no  other  course  that  would 
thoroughly  satisfy  the  world  of  Goethe's  sincerity 
and  unhappiness.  Must  we,  however,  exercise  our- 
selves in  passing  some  kind  of  judgment  in  the 
business  ?  For  this  present,  all  such  controversies 
must  be  renounced ;  and  once  for  all  let  us  summa- 
rize the  sujDposed  defects  of  Goethe's  nature,  which, 
as  comprehensive  and  yet  condensed  as  we  can  make 
them,  are  religious,  domestic,  and  political. 

In  conclusion  of  this  element  in  Goethe's  manner 
of  self-culture,  that  is,  the  embodiment  in  imaginary 
forms  and  relations  of  not  only  actual  people  and 
events,  but  as  well  his  various  internal  moods,  reflec- 
tions, and  tendencies,  I  will  add,  that  it  grew  into  a 
habit  with  him  to  want  to  know,  first  of  all,  in  regard 
to  the  productions  of  other  writers,  and  even  scientific 
labors,  out  of  what  kind  of  personal  character  and 
experience  they  had  been  evoked.  In  this,  as  critic 
and  student,  is  to  be  observed  his  leaning  toward  the 
historical  and  objective  method.  One  might  sup- 
pose, after  all  that  has  been  divulged  respecting  his 
own  way  of  drawing  from  his  experience  and  circum- 
stances, that  it  might  properly  be  called  the  sub- 
jective method,  and  that  he  would  use  approvingly, 
in  describing  others,  the  same  term.  I  shall  not 
insist  on  the  distinctions  in  the  use  of  these  terms 
by  Goethe  which  I  have  endeavored  to  find ;  but  I 


Niv; 


P^.ro"^*^53 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CUL 


have  made  the  attempt  in  order  to  read  his  critical 
works  especially,  and  maxims  scattered  all  through 
his  other  writino^s,  with  better  understanding  In 
tlie  first  place,  then,  there  are  two  essentials  to  all 
intellectual  efforts  and  products.  These  two  essen- 
tials may  be  called  by  several  terms ;  as,  broadly, 
nature  and  art ;  or,  specifically,  reality  and  imagi- 
nation, truth  and  symbol,  yourself  and  the  world. 
These  cannot  be  separated ;  the  objective  method 
does  not  separate  them ;  but  the  subjective  metliod 
undertakes  to  exclude,  sometimes  one,  sometimes  the 
other.  To  this  must  be  added  that  he  often  em- 
ployed the  term  subjective  in  speaking  of  egotists, 
mannerists,  and  dilettauts. 

The  terms  dilcttant  and  dilettanteis7n  grew  up 
alongside  of  this  enlargement  of  the  meaning  of  art 
and  artist,  and  were  the  necessary  negative  or  anti- 
thetical expressions.  The  looser  meaning  of  dilet- 
tant  is  one  wdio  amuses  himself,  or  cultivates  not  too 
seriously  any  art,  or  science,  or  literature,  and  does 
not  pretend  to  success  or  excellence.  He  is  judged 
in  proportion  to  his  intention,  and  we  give  our  ap- 
plause graciously,  because  it  is  not  demanded  of  our 
head,  but  our  heart,  in  return  for  a  casual  pleasure, 
or  because  there  has  been  displayed  to  us  some 
unexpected  natural,  though  untrained  talent. 

But  if  the  effort  be  serious,  yet  a  failure ;  if  it 
make  a  demand  to  which  we  do  not,  cannot  yield, 
then,  in  the  usage  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  and  their 
friends,  the  effort  is  dilettanteism,  and  the  agent  is  a 


54  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

dilettant.  In  short,  when  one  undertakes  to  gain 
tlie  height,  as  Goethe  said,  through  admiration  of  it, 
but  not  the  steps  to  it ;  or  feels  himself  from  any 
impulse,  inward  or  outward,  disposed  to  something 
for  which  he  has,  perhaps,  a  little,  but  no  effective 
talent ;  there  is  the  delineation  of  numberless  indi- 
viduals who  pretend  much,  who  even  labor  industri- 
ously, yet  with  no  praiseworthy  results.  However, 
we  must  not  apply  these  significant  words  empiri- 
cally, or  too  harshly.  We  have  had  many  single 
gifts,  precious  and  enduring,  from  men  of  this  class; 
and  we  cannot  forget  the  contributions  of  many 
imtrained  observers  of  nature. 

It  is  inevitable  that  Goethe  must  believe  in  recov- 
ery after  never  so  many  false  steps  and  tendencies. 
Being  men  out  of  the  earth,  going  through  the  world 
for  a  brief  period,  looking  forward  constantly,  and  in 
the  crises  of  life  upward,  it  is  necessary  we  sliould 
make  our  mistakes  help  us.  In  the  "  Annals  "  of 
Goethe,  which  are  a  sort  of  epitome  and  continuation 
of  the  "  Autobiography,"  he  declares  that  he  meant  in 
"  Wilhelm  Meister  "  to  delineate  the  career  of  a  dilet- 
tant, whose  "false  steps  may  at  last  conduct  to  an 
invaluable  good." 

One  word  more  of  his  manner  of  coming  to  conclu- 
sions respecting  the  work  of  other  minds.  We  have 
recently  here,  in  last  year's  study  of  Emerson,  been  led 
through  various  special  points  of  view  to  one  agreeing 
opinion, — that  character  was  the  source  of  his  activi- 
ties, and  that  it  is  reflected  in  them  with  few  reser- 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  65 

vations  and  no  pretensions.  Always,  when  we  can 
find  no  clue  to  the  private  life  of  the  great  men  of 
the  past,  we  attempt  to  construct  it  out  of  their  times, 
their  contemporaries,  and  the  whole  personal  environ- 
ment, as  far  as  we  can  reproduce  it.  It  was  this 
objective  spirit  in  Goethe  that  made  him  wish  to 
come  into  the  closest  relations  with  all  that  interested 
him,  —  men,  women,  and  nature.  If  there  was  known 
to  him  good  fruit  anywhere,  he  was  not  satisfied  with 
eating,  but  wished  also  to  see  the  tree  that  bore  it,  — 
its  root,  its  climate,  and  the  soil  out  of  which  it  had 
grown.  In  this  way  a  book  became  to  him  some- 
tliing  more  than  a  dry  fagot  of  sticks  from  the  still 
living  tree  ;  it  became  an  expression  of  life,  and  con- 
tributed something  to  his  own  living  and  reflecting 
nature.  Thus  he  absorbed  the  large  circle  of  extraor- 
dinary persons  whom  at  first  he  took  pains  to  know, 
and  who  at  length  took  equal  pains  to  make  them- 
selves known  to  him,  and  to  communicate  whatever 
they  were  able.  His  own  account  of  what  we  here 
but  hint  at  must  be  given,  that  it  may  become  more 
clear  to  the  reader:  — 

"  From  the  standpoint  where  God  and  nature  had  been 
pleased  to  place  me,  and  where,  next,  I  did  not  neglect 
to  exert  my  faculties  according  to  my  circumstances,  I 
looked  all  about  me  to  mark  where  great  tendencies  were 
in  operation  and  lastingly  prevailed.  I,  for  my  part,  by 
study,  by  performances  of  my  own,  by  collections  and 
experiments,  endeavored  to  reach  forth  towards  those 
tendencies,  and,  faithfully  toiling  upwards,  to  the  level  of 


56  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

the  achievements  I  could  not  myself  have  accomplished ; 
in  all  simplicity,  innocent  of  all  feeling  of  rivalry  or  envy, 
•with  perfectly  fresh  and  vital  sense,  I  pi-esumed  to  appro- 
priate to  myself  what  was  offered  to  the  century  by  its 
best  minds.  My  way,  therefore,  ran  parallel  with  very 
many  beautiful  undertakings,  till  it  would  next  turn 
towards  others.  The  new  accordingly  was  never  foreign 
to  me,  nor  was  I  ever  in  danger  either  of  adopting  it  in  a 
state  of  unpreparedness,  or,  by  reason  of  old-fashioned 
prejudice,  rejecting  it." 

On  such  a  text  as  this  confession  offers,  one  might 
gather  together  all  the  articles  and  story  of  his  self- 
cultivation.  On  one  point  we  must  here  add  some- 
thing, so  that  we  may  keep  in  «iind  that  results  were 
never  wanting  to  complete  the  full  measure  of  this 
absorbent  genius,  to  show  that  the  productive  kept  an 
equal  pace  with  the  receptive  effort.  The  stream  of 
influences  flowing  to  Goethe  received  in  their  passage 
the  most  earnest  inspection ;  he  took  up  all  that  were 
allied  in  any  manner  with  his  nature,  and  bodied 
them  forth  again  in  suitable  forms,  enlianced  by  art 
and  the  fulness  of  a  thus  multiplied  life.  Often  he 
personified  a  tendency  or  feeling.  This  design,  which 
belongs  more  strictly  to  confessed  allegory,  ends  in 
Goethe  rather  tamely,  so  far  as  we  look  for  character- 
drawing.  The  symbolical  man  has  a  too  diversified 
nature,  as  well  as  field  of  action.  I  say  man,  for  it  is 
the  men  in  his  books  that  generally  fail  to  live  in  our 
memory  as  independent  beings.  It  is  quite  different 
with  his  women ;  they  are  simple  or  sensuous ;  some 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  57 

have  the  elusive  feminine  charm  wliich  no  poet 
before  has  known  how  to  depict  so  well;  some  are 
the  women  of  men's  imagination,  who  all  in  his 
writings  turned  out  so  well ;  others  are  downright 
saints,  whose  spiritual  introspections  are  graphically 
portrayed.  To  all  these  representative  types  he  gave 
such  human  forms  as  well  satisfy  our  love  of  the 
beautiful,  within  artistic  limits.  Let  us  listen  to  his 
own  opinion  of  his  women  characters  for  a  moment, 
in  order  to  mark  the  difference  between  his  creative 
method  and  that  of  the  writers  who  draw  from  the 
life,  and  beg  of  us  to  be  pleased  to  recognize  our 
acquaintance  in  their  gilded  frames :  — 

"My  idea  of  women  is  not  abstracted  from  the  phe- 
nomena of  actual  life,  but  has  been  born  within  me,  God 
knows  how.  The  female  characters  which  I  have  drawn 
have  therefore  all  turned  out  well ;  they  are  all  better 
than  could  be  found  in  reality." 

Mark  here  the  logic  of  the  ideal  method,  —  "  there- 
fore all  turned  out  well."  Of  his  men  it  may  be  said 
that  they  are  all  also  parts  of  himself,  but  from  a  very 
different  realm  than  his  women.  In  them  there  is 
more  objective  treatment,  and  yet  they  are  not  so 
distinct.  But  in  all  and  each  may  be  seen  how  well 
he  had  resolved  all  his  materials  into  his  own  life 
before  reproduction. 

Man  is  an  imitative  animal,  is  the  received  axiom 
and  basis  of  all  art.  This  unconscious  impulse  ac- 
companies, nay,  is  commonly  the  means  of  setting 
free,  of  delimiting,  what  is  nature's  particular  gift  to 


58  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

each  man.  Too  often,  we  are  aware,  it  is  the  finished 
production,  the  feeling  raised  in  us  by  it,  that  we 
would  at  once  imitate.  The  deep -seeing  Goethe  very 
early  found  that  not  this  was  the  true  path  of  self- 
cultivation,  and  a  substantial,  abiding  fountain  of 
literary  activity  ;  but  that  it  might  be  attained  with 
fortunate  circumstances,  by  study  of  all  previous 
conditions,  and  the  life  and  art  out  of  which  great 
masters  and  their  work  had  sprung,  and  upon  which 
they  had  impressed  themselves  in  return.  So  from 
early  life  he  began  to  grasp  and  to  imitate,  not  the 
finished  works  themselves,  which  would  have  re- 
sulted only  in  something  less  than  his  models  and 
ended  in  disgust,  but  the  foundations  and  elementary 
conditions  of  a  rich,  self-developing,  and  continuous 
mental  activity.  This  was  why  he  was  so  recep- 
tive; and  being  so  became  many-sided  without  the 
usual  fatality  of  accomplishing  nothing  to  justify  the 
name.  He  was,  in  truth,  both  actively  and  passively 
many-sided. 

But  now  it  should  be  noted  with  what  certainty 
he  drew  back  from  influences  and  studies  when  they 
threatened  to  absorb  and  restrict  him.  It  seems  as 
though  he  looked  upon  them  all  as  but  preparatory ; 
a  means  of  cultivation,  not  an  end  in  themselves. 
And  his  peculiar  genius  led  him  on  to  know  many 
things  up  to  a  certain  limit,  rather  than  the  one 
which  always  flatters  the  specialist  that  it  is  with- 
out limit,  because  it  has  obtained  possession  of  him 
rather  more  than  he  has  of  it.     What  was  this  limit 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  59 

which  Goethe  observed  ?  Spinoza  had  shown  him 
the  boundary  of  investigation  in  respect  to  divine 
things  ;  which,  it  has  been  often  said,  had  a  power- 
ful and  soothing  influence  upon  his  reflections. 
Whether  it  was  that  early  impress,  or  a  native  ten- 
dency, the  limit  of  the  surrender  of  his  mind  and 
interest  was  reached  when  the  method,  the  lioio,  of 
nature  had  been  reached,  and  when  the  next  step 
would  involve  a  recourse  to  metaphysics  to  resolve 
the  wherefore. 

In  a  similar  manner,  in  all  which  he  denominated 
Art  he  stopped  short  at  the  vague,  the  inexpressible, 
and  the  subjective.  Even  the  romantic  he  thought 
no  adequate  expression,  because  it  confused  the  moral 
and  artistic  sense.  He  must  work  where  there  was 
reality,  freedom,  such  as  the  Greek  outline  denotes  ; 
and  upon  that  which  was  not  already  a  shadowy  and 
uncertain  symbol,  but  so  universal  and  inevitable 
that  it  could  be  symbolized  in  a  thousand  pleasing 
and  instructive  ways.  Many  a  time  he  abandons 
himself  to  a  mood ;  seldom  to  the  formal  choice  of 
poetic  theme ;  and  he  believes  that  the  occasional 
poem,  the  fruit  of  the  former,  is  our  best  modern 
poetry,  while  the  latter  labors  in  a  vacuum.  He 
yields  to  personal  influences,  intellectual  and  passion- 
ate, until  they  become  noxious  and  are  likely  to  sub- 
merge his  individuality.  And  he  follows  the  study 
of  natural  sciences  as  far  as  the  human  senses,  un- 
aided by  microscope,  scalpel,  laboratory,  and  prism, 
can  penetrate.     Artificial  contrivances  introduce  arti- 


60  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

ficial  relations.  But  the  chief  objection,  from  the 
standpoint  of  Goethe's  self-culture  (which  would  co- 
ordinate the  visible  world  with  man),  to  the  techni- 
cal and  mechanical  methods  of  investigation,  is  again 
this,  to  which  I  have  already  alluded;  namely,  that 
in  science  and  in  philosophy  we  should  not  attempt 
to  search  the  inaccessible,  the  great  mystery,  but 
keep  ourselves  on  the  hither  side,  wliere  we  can  labor 
fearlessly  and  to  some  purpose.  This,  one  may  well 
say,  is  a  poet's  doctrine ;  since  it  gives  up  one  world 
to  his  sharpest  outward  senses,  and  consecrates  the 
other  to  the  imagination.  In  Germany  more  than 
anywhere  else,  in  Goethe's  time,  such  a  belief  ap- 
peared as  the  natural  reaction  from  the  innumerable 
attempts  of  philosophers  and  theologians  to  formulate 
systems  which  should  explain  by  ratiocination  what, 
having  been  long  accepted  by  faith,  was  beginning 
to  be  shaken  by  those  inquiries  that  we  now  stand 
in  the  full  stream  of.  A  great  deal  in  "  Faust "  has 
a  symbolic  or  ironical  reference  to  the  current  dis- 
cussions. These  discussions  were  bold  and  vehe- 
ment, and  went  so  near  the  verge  of  profanity  that 
a  man  of  Goethe's  sense  of  proportion  reacted  against 
them.  Fichte's  conclusion  of  one  of  his  lectures, 
whether  true  or  false,  hits  off  the  height  of  the  fash- 
ion of  philosophical  agitation :  "  To-morrow,  gentle- 
men, I  shall  create  God." 

I  have  said  that  Goethe  disliked  all  mechanical 
contrivances  for  extending  the  reach  of  the  five  hu- 
man senses.     It  is  well  known  how  much  he  inter- 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  61 

ested  himself  iu  the  theory  of  colors.  He  came  in 
the  course  of  his  investigations  more  near  to  beiug 
moved  off  his  usual  calm  balance  than  by  any  other 
affair  of  his  life.  His  theory  was  not  accepted,  and 
still  is  not,  save  by  a  few  men.  Yet  who  would 
know  Goethe  must  know  it ;  for  even  in  its  supposed 
errors  is  more  clearly  shown  than  in  his  accepted 
scientific  observations  the  longiug  for,  the  immense 
faith  in,  the  unity  of  Nature  and  the  simplicity  of  her 
operations.  In  optics,  as  in  other  pursuits,  he  would 
have  no  aids  but  the  natural  eye ;  and  his  cliief  dis- 
trust in  Newton's  theory  of  colors  came  from  that 
philosopher's  use  of  the  prism  in  experiments.  There 
is  here  a  curious  coincidence  in  sentiment  between 
Goethe  and  Keats,  which  seems  to  reveal  the  poetic 
temperament  the  same  iu  two  otherwise  infinitely 
different  natures. 

One  day,  at  a  merry  meeting  of  poets  and  artists  in 
London,  Keats  proposed  the  toast,  "  Confusion  to  the 
memory  of  Newton."  Charles  Lamb  refused  to  drink 
until  it  had  been  explained.  "  Because,"  said  Keats, 
"  he  destroyed  the  poetry  of  the  rainbow  by  reducing 
it  to  a  prism." 

Nature,  as  if  to  reward  the  poet  who  would  toler- 
ate no  mediatory  artifices  for  access  to  her  mysteries, 
endowed  him  with  a  natural  second-sight.  Still  he 
must  deliver  what  he  saw  by  symbol.  Thus  were 
both  nature  and  art  satisfied. 

The  unity  of  Nature  was  an  early  vision,  and  the 
last  supreme  certainty  of  his  old  age.     This,  being 


62  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

well  established  in  him,  became  an  active,  efficient 
idea.  The  apparent  manifold  parts  and  diverse  man- 
ifestations of  Nature  being  but  adaptations  of  her- 
self to  external  mutual  conditions,  every  one  was  the 
symbol  of  the  other ;  and  the  typical  form  was  that 
which  self-culture  and  art  should  bend  themselves  to 
produce. 

We  left  behind  one  Goethean  characteristic,  of 
which  some  mention  should  be  made.  This  was  his 
special  studies  as  a  means  of  self-culture,  rather  than 
for  the  purpose  of  becoming  a  specialist.  Just  as  he 
released  himself  from  personal  influences  wdien  he 
found  them  like  to  be  overpowering  or  barren,  so  in 
studies  he  stopped  at  the  point  where  it  would  be 
necessary  for  going  on  with  one  to  give  up  all  the 
others.  Had  his  inclination  been  other,  he  would 
have  become  a  learned  professor,  or  a  great  author- 
ity in  minerals,  anatomy,  and  botany ;  or  a  poet  and 
only  a  poet.  But  he  never  could  lose  himself  in 
anything.  Perhaps  one  of  the  reasons  of  this,  besides 
the  motive  of  self-culture,  was,  that  though  a  poet 
and  much  else,  he  was  also  a  critic.  Indeed,  the  chief 
limitation  of  Goethe's  temperament  is,  that  reflection 
interferes  too  much  and  too  often  with  spontaneity. 
As  he  grew  older,  he  became  more  and  more  di- 
dactic and  Orphic.  The  early  fruitage  and  flowers 
had  been  plucked ;  he  now  began  to  harvest  the 
seed-corn.  There  is  something  in  the  oracular  wis- 
dom of  his  maturity  which  resembles  the  poetic 
efi'ect,  but  we  miss  the  morning-red.     The  daemonic 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  63 

influences  of  his  youth  are  in  abeyance ;  they  are 
in  his  cabinets  now,  strung  upon  wires.  They  are 
moved  at  length  by  determination  and  energy,  and 
help  him  to  complete  his  untinislied  works,  where 
they  reappear  disembodied  and  passionless.  The 
apotheosis  of  that  which  had  lived  in  him,  all  glow- 
ing, sensitive,  creative,  took  place. 

Although  much  given- to  symbolizing  throughout 
all  periods  of  his  life,  and  to  a  reliance  upon  moods 
and  circumstances,  as  well  as  a  secret  leaning  toward 
poetic  superstitions,  presentiments  and  omens,  in 
general  he  held  firmly  to  realities,  and  insisted  that 
divining-rods  could  only  be  found  on  the  tree  of 
knowledge.  As  the  closing  result  of  these  two 
tendencies  he  became  in  prose  didactic ;  and  in 
poetry,  there  being  for  him  not  much  else  left  to 
undertake,  he  attempts  to  reveil  symbols  in  a  deeper 
mystery.  In  this  he  still  adhered  to  his  life-long 
habit  of  leaving  one  world  to  action  and  reflection, 
the  other  to  invention  and  imagination.  In  the 
former,  his  treatment  and  subjects  are  various  and 
suggestive ;  in  the  latter,  there  are  plentiful  master- 
pieces, ample  invitations  to  study.  We  can  make 
personal  applications  here  and  there.  Yes,  it  is 
plain  that  Goethe  foresaw  the  needs  of  this  genera- 
tion, and  left  some  sealed,  almost  personal  messages. 
These  are,  I  dare  say,  such  as  most  would  vouch 
Goethe  never  intended.  But  a  reader  who  finds  no 
more  in  any  book  than  the  writer  intended  is  a  poor 
reader,  or  he  is  reading  a  poor  book.     A  good  book 


64  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

is  the  author  plus  the  reader.  I  say  this  by  way  of 
preparation  for  the  inevitable  questionings  which 
must  arise  in  the  coming  week  as  to  whether  Goethe 
intended  all  that  we  shall  hear  from  our  speakers  in 
their  interpretations.  We  shall  hear  profitably  what 
each  one  finds  in  which  we  can  all  agree.  For  the 
rest,  the  unconscious  element,  that  is  in  every  great 
work  of  man's  mind,  it  lies  before  us  like  a  friendly, 
rich  banquet,  where  tliere  is  enougli  for  all  and 
somethiug  for  every  taste.  This  utfcouscious  ele- 
ment is  no  doubt  an  extensive  portion  of  Goethe, 
and  especially  fascinating  as  it  appears  in  every  sort 
of  figurative  form.  Never  believe  that  in  Goethe 
you  are  getting  your  truth  without  poetry.  The 
naked  truth  is  verily  naked,  and  had  better  remain 
in  the  bottom  of  its  traditional  well.  Give  to  it  its 
relations,  its  adaptations,  put  it  into  action  and 
thought,  and  as  it  is  a  liberating,  divine  thing,  it 
clothes  itself  in  joyful,  beautiful  forms,  and  becomes 
poetry.  The  higher  the  truth,  the  more  poetic;  and 
all  men  prefer  illumination,  the  opening  of  the  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  sense,  to  any  other  light. 
For  it  takes  them  out  of  their  limitations,  which 
higher  truth  challenges  as  facts.  These  a  low, 
earth-dwelling  understanding  has  erected  into  in- 
stitutions, social,  religious,  political,  which  our  study 
of  Goethe  may  expose  and  help  us  to  resist. 

The  sacred  treasure,  the  accumulation  of  a  long 
life  of  activity,  upon  which  Goethe  turned  constantly 
reflection   and   imagination  in  due  proportions   and 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  65 

with  an  infallible  discrimination,  has  been  handed  on 
to  us  in  various  vessels;  some  translucent,  always 
visible ;  some  to  be  seen  only  in  the  night,  like  the 
castle  of  Avallon,  by  the  light  of  certain  stars,  reck- 
oned lucky  in  the  horoscope  of  the  beholder,  under 
which  his  vision  is  clearer  in  some  seasons  and 
epochs  of  life  than  at  others.  To  speak  without 
metaphor,  if  we  live,  experience,  suffer,  love,  and 
think,  we  come  in  succession  to  pages  of  Goethe 
where,  having  once  been  dark,  we  now  find  he  has 
left  a  lamp  burning  for  us  ;  like  a  friendly  host, 
who  divined  better  than  ourselves  the  hour  of  our 
arrival. 

As  we  have  said,  the  unity  of  nature  was  Goethe's 
constant  perception ;  every  seeming  diversity  but 
adaptation,  in  whose  processes  are  all  the  semblances 
of  motive,  cunning  contrivance,  sympathy,  sex,  moth- 
erly forethought,  as  in  the  cotyledonous  leaf,  love  of 
beauty  and  final  purpose.  It  appears  to  me  he  took 
a  lesson  here  ;  yielding  himself,  like  a  plant,  to  the 
external  conditions  of  man's  world.  But  then  he 
reversed  the  operation,  and  made  all  conform  to  an 
inward  sliaping  mind.  Herein  we  come  to  that 
which  distinguishes  man  from  plants  and  animals, 
and  also,  it  must  be  said,  man  from  man ;  one  liv- 
ing wholly  in  the  external,  and  forever  guided  and 
moulded  by  it ;  another  receiving  it,  but  reacting 
upon  it,  and  impressing  his  own  inward  being  in 
typical   forms   that  draw   us  from  the  fashion  that 

passeth  away  to  the  permanent  and  true. 

6 


66  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

Self-culture,  therefore,  by  means  of  the  external 
surrender  and  the  internal  shaping,  is  a  good  part 
of  the  philosophy  and  religion  of  Goethe.  To  sepa- 
rate them  is  a  sin  in  literary  ethics,  and  is  to  want 
the  philosophical  substructure  of  all  creative  liter- 
ary art. 

It  was  in  delineating  these  two  aspects  of  man's 
nature  and  destiny,  morally  considered,  that  he  found 
man's  greatest  good  and  worst  evil.  Meister  blun- 
ders, Faust  sins,  in  the  endeavor  to  satisfy  themselves 
with  the  external  world,  —  to  conquer,  to  possess  it. 
All  along  they  are  not  sinners,  but  exceedingly  desir- 
ous of  wisdom  by  means  of  self-cultivation ;  but  they 
have  taken  wrong  roads.  This,  then,  their  bungling 
was  their  error.  And  as  in  Faust  we  have  a  new 
sort  of  devil,  so  in  Meister  we  have  a  new  kind  of 
sinner ;  both  much  needed  to  instruct  and  convict  the 
modern  world,  hotly  in  pursuit  of  every  means,  cul- 
ture included,  to  possess  itself  of  external  advantages, 
to  live  more  splendidly  on  the  surface,  to  feel,  like 
the  fly  on  the  wheel,  that  they  cause  all  the  move- 
ment and  the  dust.  Our  age  had  outgrown  the  inter- 
pretations of  the  good  parish  priest ;  Satan  did  not 
embody  for  us  any  wickedness  with  which  we  were 
practically  acquainted,  and  most  vulgar  sins  were 
provided  for  by  the  law.  We  needed  a  more  subtle, 
refined,  and  familiar  devil  to  affright  us,  and  a  cor- 
rected catalogue  of  those  errors  in  which  we  were 
involved,  scarcely  however  knowing  it,  because  long  • 
without  prophets.     Goethe   came,  and   having   first 


GOETHE'S  SELF-CULTURE.  67 

taught  and  saved  himself,  in  a  manner  demanded  by 
modern  life,  he  then  left  us  the  method  and  the 
useful  precepts. 

When  we  use  the  words  sin  and  devil,  the  implica- 
tion is  too  often  of  some  outward  act  or  some  incar- 
nation of  it ;  when  we  find  it  in  French,  we  suspect  a 
woman  not  far  off.  In  Goethe  it  is  a  little  nearer ;  it 
has  many  marks,  many  metonymic  names ;  but  false 
tendencies  and  vague,  and  impatience,  negation,  ego- 
tism are  some  of  them.  The  great  human  effort  and 
act  is  renunciation ;  the  final  issue,  reconciliation. 
For  these  self-culture  in  its  broadest  meaning  is  the 
instrument  and  preparation,  and  its  purpose  justifies 
its  means. 

Whenever  the  nations  of  the  North,  and  especially 
the  Teutonic,  have  reached  certain  stages  in  civiliza- 
tion, they  have  been  bowed  down  under  the  feeling 
that  there  was  something  wrong  in  the  universe, 
which  it  was  their  mission  to  set  right.  Goethe  was 
born  into  a  chaotic  time,  when  this  feeling  was  at 
its  height  throughout  Europe.  He  was  endowed  by 
nature  with  a  higlily  organized  being,  susceptible  to 
every  impression,  to  such  a  degree  that  he  cherished 
superstitions  in  regard  to  it.  As  great  care  is  taken 
that  those  who  can  suffer  shall,  he  felt  to  the  full 
the  maladies  of  his  age.  He  wrought  his  own  cure 
first,  by  self-culture,  there  being  no  outward  helps ; 
then  he  turned  to  the  relief  of  others,  and  became 
the  great  intellectual  and  spiritual  physician  of  man- 
kind. 


68  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 


III. 

GOETHE'S  TITANISM. 

By  THOMAS  DAVIDSON. 

Two  things  become  clear  to  men  as  they  advance 
in  spiritual  life :  first,  that  there  is  no  rest  for  the 
soul  anywhere  save  in  the  Absolute  and  Infinite ;  and, 
second,  that  this  rest  can  be  attained  only  by  the  per- 
sistent and  heroic  efforts  of  the  soul  itself.  Althou2;h 
the  facts  corresponding  to  these  truths  are  eternal, 
although  the  life  of  the  soul,  unconscious  as  well  as 
conscious,  is  a  striving  toward  the  Absolute  and  Infi- 
nite through  infinite  evolution,  the  truths  themselves 
come  but  slowly  and  late  into  consciousness,  and  the 
former  comes  much  earlier  than  the  latter.  Indeed, 
the  former  has  been  impressed  by  all  the  great  world- 
religions,  as  well  as  by  some  of  the  great  world-phi- 
losophies, whereas  the  latter  is  in  many  quarters, 
even  of  the  civilized  world,  counted  little  less  than 
blasphemy.  Looking  merely  at  the  Western  world, 
we  find  that,  in  the  religion  of  ancient  Greece,  the 
greatest  impiety  of  which  a  man  could  be  guilty  was 
v/3pL<;,  or  insubordination ;  that  is,  any  intent  or  en- 
deavor to  place  himself  on  an  equality  with  the  gods. 
This  we   find   forcibly  illustrated,  not   only   in   the  , 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  69 

myths  regarding  the  Titans,  but  also  in  those  related 
of  Tantalus,  Ixion,  Niobe,  etc.  To  the  Greeks,  as  to 
the  Hebrews,  the  divine  powers  are  jealous,  standing 
upon  their  rights  and  claiming  unquestioning  obe- 
dience, after  the  manner  of  Oriental  despots.  The 
heaven,  as  Aristotle  hints,  is  always  a  copy  of  the 
earth,  and  men's  gods  are  never  very  much  better 
than  themselves.  No  doubt,  both  in  Greece  and  in 
Judeea,  there  were  men  who  had  a  nobler  and  truer 
conception  of  the  Divine  Power,  and  this  conception 
finally  attained  currency  in  that  powerful  movement 
called,  after  its  chief  promoter,  Christianity.  Jesus, 
"  being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not  robbery  to 
be  equal  with  God ; "  or,  as  the  revised  version  has  it, 
"  being  in  the  form  of  God,  counted  it  not  a  prize  to 
be  on  an  equality  with  God."  More  clearly  expressed, 
this  means  that  Jesus,  though  essentially  deiform,  held 
that  equality  with  God  was  not  a  thing  to  be  obtained 
by  robbery. 

It  was  a  great  step  for  men  to  have  come  to  recog- 
nize that  they  were  deiform,  and  still  a  greater  step 
to  have  realized  that  that  form  could  be  actualized, 
and  that  they  might  be  perfect,  even  as  the  Father 
which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect.  This  view  is  by  no 
means  peculiar  to  Christianity.  We  find  it  repeat- 
edly stated  by  heathen  philosophers  in  the  clearest 
terms.  Hierokles,  the  Pythagorean,  for  example,  tells 
us  that  "  each  ought  to  become,  first  a  man,  and  then 
a  god."  It  is  true  that  the  Hellenic  view,  having  its 
root  in  polytheism,  is  not  identical  with  the  Christian 


70  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

view,  whicli  is  founded  in  monotheism ;  but  the  two 
agree  in  this  important  respect,  that  they  recognize  the 
end  of  spiritual  life  to  be  the  attainment  of  the  Abso- 
lute. The  most  fundamental  difference  between  the 
two  views  is  this  :  that,  while  the  philosophic  Greeks 
held  the  way  to  the  Absolute  to  be  through  the  exer- 
cise of  the  speculative  or  theoretic  virtues,  the  Chris- 
tian Fathers  placed  it  in  the  practical  virtues,  which 
the  Greeks  held  to  be  merely  the  conditions  of  arriv- 
ing at  manhood.  In  later  Christianity,  which  is  quite 
as  much  Hellenic  as  Hebrew,  the  two  views  were 
united.  The  motto  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  monastic 
orders,  the  Benedictine,  which,  roughly  speaking,  was 
founded  in  the  year  500,  is,  Om  et  labora,  "  Pray  and 
labor,"  —  in  other  words,  combine  the  practical  with 
the  contemplative  life.  As  lias  recently  been  pointed 
out  in  an  admirable  way  by  the  Bishop  of  Foggia,  St. 
Benedict  combined  in  himself  the  practical  wisdom 
of  the  Eonian  (he  was  the  son  of  a  Eoman  patrician) 
and  the  contemplative  spirit  of  the  Christian  monk. 

But,  besides  the  above-mentioned  difference  be- 
tween the  Hellenic  and  Hebrew  views,  there  was 
another,  hardly  less  pregnant  in  its  effects.  In  the 
Hellenic  view,  man  was  destined  to  attain  divinity, 
if  at  all,  through  his  own  efforts,  through  self-purifi- 
cation and  devotion  to  that  contemplation  which,  as 
Aristotle  says,  "we  sometimes  enjoy,  God  always." 
In  the  Hebrew  view,  on  the  contrary,  man  was  to  be 
raised  to  perfection  equal  to  that  of  the  Father,  in 
large  measure  by  grace,  tliat  is,  by  a  free  transient 


GOETHE'S  TITANISM.  71 

act  on  the  part  of  the  Divine  itself.  The  doctrine  of 
special  grace  is  an  ahiding  portion  of  the  Christian 
creed.  Christians,  therefore,  following  the  example 
of  Jesus,  were  expected  to  empty  themselves  and 
wait  till  God  filled  them  and  exalted  them,  while  the 
Greeks  were  expected  in  all  ways  to  strive  and  help 
themselves.  As  a  natural  consequence,  the  charac- 
teristic Christian  virtue  is  Oriental  self-abasement  or 
humility,  whereas  the  characteristic  Hellenic  virtue 
is  self-respect  or  personal  dignity.  While  the  Chris- 
tian claims  nothing  for  himself,  hut  looks  for  every- 
thing as  a  free  gift  from  God,  powerful  and  pitiful, 
against  whom  he  has  no  rights,  the  Greek,  conscious 
of  his  own  potential  divinity,  makes  infinite  claims, 
and  labors  in  every  way  to  make  these  good. 

The  success  of  Christianity  and  the  downfall  of 
Hellenism  mean  that  the  world  accepted  the  Chris- 
tian view  and  rejected  the  Hellenic.  It  has  done  this 
in  large  measure,  at  least  in  theory,  for  some  eighteen 
hundred  years.  Still  not  altogether  even  in  theory, 
and  very  imperfectly  in  practice.  Though  the  Hel- 
lenic spirit  slumbers,  it  does  not  die. 

"  The  vine-wreathed  god, 
Eising,  a  stifled  question  from  the  silence, 
Fronts  the  pierced  Image,  with  the  crown  of  thorns." 

At  no  time  has  this  spirit  been  entirely  inactive; 
but  its  mightiest  revolt  took  place  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  in  what  is  known  as  the  Pagan  Eenaissance, 
which  again  was  closely  connected  with  the  Protes- 
tant Eeformation.     In  the  former  there  is  an  asser- 


72  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

tion  of  the  rights  of  the  natural,  as  over  against  the 
spiritual ;  iu  the  latter,  an  assertion  of  the  rights  of 
human  reason,  as  over  against  faith ;  in  both,  a  revolt 
against  the  spirit  of  historical  Christianity.  In  the 
last  three  hundred  years,  Hellenism  has  been  making 
rapid  strides.  Freedom  is  the  order  of  the  day,  just 
as  submission  was  in  former  times,  and  there  can 
be  but  little  doubt  that  this  tendency  will  go  on 
increasing. 

And  it  is  right  and  well  that  this  should  be  so. 
In  spite  of  all  its  great  worthiness,  in  spite  of  its 
unexampled  success,  in  spite  of  its  manifold  adapta- 
tion to  human  weaknesses  and  needs,  the  Christian 
ideal  is  not  a  perfect  one.  It  is  essentially  one- 
sided, and  needs  to  be  supplemented  by  the  Hellenic 
ideal,  which  contains  elements  both  of  manliness 
and  truth  which  the  Christian  ideal  lacks.  It  is  in 
every  way  more  manly  for  the  deiforra  human  being 
to  work  out  his  own  perfection  by  his  own  free  efforts, 
than  to  place  himself  in  the  position  of  a  dependent 
mendicant  and  accept  it  from  another.  Moreover, 
such  perfection,  even  if  desirable,  is  not  possible ; 
for  perfection  is  not  something  that  can  be  imparted 
or  received ;  it  is  something  that  must  be  worked 
out  through  a  long  series  of  free  acts,  and  these  no 
being,  not  even  a  god,  can  perform  for  another. 

That  the  Christian  Fathers  should  have  adopted 
a  view  at  variance  with  this,  only  shows  that  they 
understood  the  nature  of  spirit  and  of  spiritual 
things  much   less   perfectly   than  the  contemporary 


GOETHE'S  TITANISM.  7B 

Pagan  philosophers.  This  difference  becomes  very- 
apparent,  when  we  compare  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  God  with  the  Liter  Hellenic  philosophical  one. 
The  Christian  conception  is  still  mythological  to  a 
considerable  extent.  According  to  this,  God  is  still 
only  a  large  man,  with  all  the  finite  attributes  and 
passions  of  man,  an  individual  among  individuals,  a 
being  who  loves  and  hates,  plans  and  repents.  The 
Greek  conception,  on  the  other  hand,  is  profound  and 
philosophical.  According  to  this,  God  is  above  all 
individuality,  being  its  essential  correlate  and  condi- 
tion. None  of  the  attributes  of  individuality  apply  to 
him.  He  is  neither  one  nor  many,  although  he  is  the 
essential  condition  of  both.  He  performs  no  tran- 
sient acts,  inasmuch  as  time  does  not  exist  for  him. 
He  is  nowhere,  and  yet  everywhere,  because  space 
does  not  exist  for  him.  He  is  without  variation. 
In  a  word,  he  is  ;  he  is  that  which  is.  He  is  not  a 
reality,  since  all  reality  is  of  necessity  finite  and 
capable  of  performing  transient  acts  iu  time  and 
space.  That  is  what  we  mean  by  reality.  He  is  the 
pure  Ideal,  of  which  the  attributes  are  Absoluteness 
and  Infinity.  In  the  material  world  he  appears  as 
space,  the  prime  condition  of  all  corporeal  existence  ; 
in  the  intellectual  world  he  objectifies  himself  as  be- 
ing, the  condition  of  all  thought ;  in  tlie  moral  world 
he  diffuses  himself  as  pure  love,  or  as  the  good,  the 
condition  of  all  morality,  heroism,  and  self-sacrifice. 
The  sensible  manifestation  of  God  was  recognized  by 
the  early  Aryans,  when  they   made   Dyaus,  that  is 


74  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

Zeus  or  Jupiter,  their  chief  god  ;  for  Dyaus  is  merely 
the  open  sky,  which  these  early  thinkers  confounded 
with  pure  space.  The  intellectual  objectification  of 
God  as  Being  we  find  first  in  the  Vedas  and  in  the 
Mosaic  records.  In  the  former  we  read :  "  He  who 
established  the  six  worlds,  —  is  he  that  One  which 
exists  in  the  form  of  unborn  Being  ? "  In  the  latter, 
God  is  made  to  speak  of  himself  as  /  am  that  I  am, 
or  as  /  am  that  am.  It  is  not  until  after  the  rise  of 
Christianity  that  we  find  the  clear  statement  made 
that  God  is  Love  ;  but  centuries  before  that,  as  early 
at  least  as  Aristotle,  we  find  what  is  virtually  the 
same  thing,  the  affirmation  that  God  is  the  highest 
good,  that  is,  the  object  of  the  highest  love. 

We  thus  find  that  all  the  three  modes  in  which 
the  Divine  Being  reveals  itself — the  real,  the  ideal, 
and  the  moral  —  have  successively  and  at  long  in- 
tervals of  time  been  discovered,  and  even  stated  with 
almost  philosophical  precision.  Unfortunately,  this 
philosophic  statement  has  never  attained  currency, 
but  has  always  been  reduced  to  terms  of  the  imagi- 
nation. The  Infinite  has  been  made  finite ;  the 
Absolute,  relative ;  the  Ideal,  real ;  the  Eternal, 
transient.  Dyaus  became  Jupiter;  /  am  that  am, 
Jehovah ;  Love,  the  angry  divinity  of  Christianity. 
The  truth  is,  the  philosophic  conception  of  the  Spir- 
itual and  the  Divine  cannot  be  made  intelligible  to 
the  popular  mind,  which  thinks  almost  entirely  in 
terms  of  the  imagination.  Since,  however,  even 
the   popular  mind   craves,   and,   for  moral   reasons, 


GOETHE'S  TITANISM.  75 

requires,  some  notions  of  divinity,  an  attempt  is 
made  to  accommodate  the  philosophic  conception  of 
it  to  the  imagination.  These  fanciful  conceptions  of 
the  Deity  after  a  time  recoil  from  the  people  upon 
philosophers  themselves,  and  turn  these  into  theolo- 
gians, who  employ  all  their  efforts  in  order  to  make 
the  popular  notions  of  divinity  acceptable  to  pure 
reason  or  thought.  This  is  the  real  source  of  all 
that  is  mythic  in  religion,  as  well  as  of  all  that  is 
purely  dogmatic.  It  is,  consequently,  the  source  of 
all  those  systems  of  religious  thought  which  arise 
from  time  to  time  and  become  popular  in  the  world ; 
for  example.  Buddhism,  Christianity,  Mohamme- 
danism. Such  systems,  though  essentially  unphilo- 
sophical,  and  necessarily  containing  much  that  is 
erroneous,  are  in  many  ways  of  very  great  value. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  practically  they  are  of 
more  value  than  the  pure  truth  would  be.  The  error 
contained  in  them  is  like  the  nitrogen  in  the  atmos- 
phere, which  prevents  the  oxygen  from  destroying 
the  human  frame  by  too  rapid  combustion.  But, 
after  all,  no  religious  system  whose  god  or  gods  are 
to  any  degree  conceived  in  terms  of  the  limiting 
imagination  can  be  perpetual.  The  error  involved 
will,  sooner  or  later,  make  itself  felt,  in  thought  by 
contradiction,  and  in  life  by  disorganization,  and 
then  will  follow  something  in  the  form  of  a  revolt, 
both  in  thought  and  life.  The  revolt  in  thought  will 
come  from  philosophers.  —  not  necessarily  from  pro- 
pounders  of  systems,  but  from  men  intimately  ac- 


76  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

quainted  with  the  aspirations  and  intellectual  needs 
of  their  time,  probably  from  poets  or  literary  men. 
The  revolt  in  life  will  come  either  from  men  who 
have  suffered  deeply  from  the  institutions  among 
which  they  were  born,  like  Eousseau,  or  from  men  in 
whom  the  "enthusiasm  of  humanity"  is  an  over- 
powering passion,  like  the  inspired  founders  of  the 
great  religions. 

It  is  this  revolt  against  established  conceptions  of 
the  divine  and  the  institutions  founded  thereon  that 
we  call  Tita7iism.  But,  inasmuch  as  new  conceptions 
of  God  are  practically  new  gods,  Titanism  always 
seems  a  revolt  against  God  himself,  a  violence,  an 
impiety,  whereas  it  frequently  turns  out  to  be  the 
very  opposite.  When  such  a  revolt  is  crushed,  the 
revolters  are  spoken  of  as  atheists  and  traitors ;  when 
it  succeeds,  they  may  be  counted  as  prophets  and 
religious  heroes.     As  John  Harrington  puts  it, 

"  Treason  doth  never  prosper  :  what 's  the  reason  ? 
For  when  it  prospers,  none  dare  call  it  treason." 

All  revolts  against  the  established  order  of  things 
are  due  to  one  form  or  another  of  radicalism,  —  some 
attempt  to  secure  a  more  perfect  expression  of  the 
fundamental  being  or  nature  of  things.  This  is  just 
as  true  of  those  great  religious  reformations  that  have 
ended  in  giving  to  mankind  a  nobler  and  truer  con- 
ception of  the  divine,  and  in  bringing  this  conception 
to  bear  upon  human  life,  as  of  those  wild  revolu- 
tions that  seek  to  overturn  law  and  order  in  favor  of 
anarchy  and  license.     There  are,  indeed,  two  entirely 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  11 

distinct  forms  of  Titanism,  just  as  there  were  two 
orders  among  the  mythical  Titans  themselves.  The 
Titans  are  simply  personifications  of  the  brute  forces 
of  nature  and  the  fundamental  forces  of  spirit.  The 
former  of  these  always  tend  to  revolution  and  an- 
archy ;  the  latter,  even  in  their  revolt  against  order, 
to  a  hiuher  order.  The  former  in  man  we  call  the 
lusts  of  the  flesh ;  the  latter  we  call  the  aspirations 
of  the  spirit  after  the  Divine,  the  Infinite,  the  Abso- 
lute. Aristotle  {De  Anima,  B.  IV.  2 ;  415^  1)  says 
that  "all  thinos  reach  out  toward  the  eternal  and 
the  divine,  and  it  is  for  the  sake  thereof  that  they  do 
all  that  they  do  according  to  nature."  Whatever 
acts,  then,  do  not  tend  toward  the  Divine  may  be  said 
to  be  unnatural ;  whatever  acts  do  so  tend,  to  be 
natural.  All  nature,  as  such,  tends  to  the  highest 
order,  to  the  Divine.  At  the  bottom  of  all  revolu- 
tions lies  a  conception  of  man  as  a  material  being ; 
at  the  bottom  of  all  reformations,  a  conception  of  man 
as  a  spiritual  being,  striving  to  realize  the  Divine  in 
himself. 

Having  thus  distinguished  the  two  fundamental 
forms  of  Titanism,  we  may  now  ask,  Under  which  of 
tlie  two  must  we  class  Goethe's  Titanism,  —  under 
that  of  Kronos,  who  rose  up  in  rebellion  against  his 
own  nobler  offspring,  Zeus,  in  order  to  restore  tlie 
world  to  an  older  and  less  spiritual  condition,  or  to 
that  of  Prometheus,  who  rebelled  against  Zeus,  in 
favor  of  something  more  spiritual  than  even  his  do- 
minion  ?     One   may  answer  this   question    without 


78  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

hesitation.  The  Titaiiism  of  Goethe  is  for  the  most 
part  the  Titanism  of  Prometheus.  And  it  is  so  in 
a  very  marked  and  striking  way.  One  can  hardly 
read  Goethe's  best  works  without  being  continually 
reminded  of  Prometheus.  The  similarity  did  not 
escape  Goethe's  own  notice.  Prometheus  was  a 
favorite  figure  with  him,  and  there  is  perhaps  no 
portion  of  his  writings  in  which  his  own  true  charac- 
ter comes  out  more  clearly  than  in  the  powerful 
fragment  bearing  the  name  of  the  great  Titan.  In 
this  we  find  Prometheus,  after  having  served  Zeus  for 
many  years,  engaged  in  open,  outspoken  rebellion 
against  him,  and  yet  enjoying  the  special  favor  of 
Zeus's  daughter,  Athena,  the  pei-sonification  of  wis- 
dom.    In  a  conversation  with  her  the  Titan  says : 

*'  Hast  thou  not  seen  me  oft, 
In  self-elected  servitude, 
The  burden  bear,  which  they 
In  solemn  earnest  on  my  shoulders  laid  ? 
Have  I  the  labor  not  completed, 
Each  daily  task  at  their  behest, 
Because  I  thought  that 
They  saw  what  has  been,  and  what  shall  be. 
Within  the  present. 

And  that  their  guidance,  their  command, 
Was  first,  primeval  and 
Unself-regarding  Wisdom  ? " 


Prometheus  has  found  the  limitations  of  the  gods  in 
whom  he  has  been  taught  to  believe.  They  know 
no  more  about  the  past  and  the  future  from  the 
present  than  he  does ;  they  are  blind  leaders  of  the 
blind,   and  their  blindness  is   due  to  the   fact   that 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  79 

they  are  selfish,  looking  for  their  own  enjoyment, 
instead  of  being  universally  diffused  to  bless.  Pro- 
metheus has  been  able  to  discover  these  limitations 
of  the  reisninsr  sods,  because  he  has  won  the  love  of 
a  younger  and  nobler  divinity,  —  the  eivig-weihliclie 
Athena.  A  declaration  of  this  love  on  tlie  part  of 
Athena,  coupled  with  an  expression  of  respect  for 
her  father, — 

"  Ich  ehre  meinen  Vater, 
Uud  liebe  dich,  Prometheus,"  — 

draws  from  the  Titan  these  remarkable  words  :  — 

"  And  thou  art  to  my  spirit 
"What  it  is  to  itself. 
Even  from  the  first 

Thy  words  have  been  celestial  light  to  me. 
Ever,  as  if  my  soul  spake  unto  itself, 
It  opened  wide. 

And  harmonies,  born  with  it  at  its  birth, 
Rang  forth,  from  out  itself,  within  it. 
And  a  Divinity 
Spoke  when  I  seemed  to  speak. 
And  when  I  thought  Divinity  did  speak, 
I  spoke  myself. 
And  so  with  tliee  and  me. 
So  one,  so  intimate, 
Endless  my  love  to  thee  ! " 

Here  we  find  expressed  in  its  most  intense  and 
naked  form  the  Titanism  of  Goethe.  It  is  a  revolt 
against  the  outward  gods  of  tradition  and  dogma, 
the  individual  gods  of  the  current  religion,  in  favor 
of  the  God  in  his  own  heart,  the  God  whose  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  within  him,  who  is  not  distinguishable 


80  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

from  his  own  inmost  being,  who  is  at  once  wisdom 
and  love  and  the  desire  to  be  utterly  diffused  in 
creation  and  blessedness.  When  Athena  blames  his 
hatred  for  the  gods,  and  reminds  him  that  they  have 
power,  and  wisdom,  and  love,  Prometheus  replies : 

"AH  that  belongs  not 
Unto  them  alone  : 
I  too  endure  like  them. 
Eternal  are  we  all !  — 
Of  my  beginning  memory  have  I  none. 
To  end  I  have  no  call. 
Nor  see  I  any  end. 
Thus  am  I  eternal,  for  I  am. 
And  wisdom  !  — 

(Directhig  Athena's  attention  to  his  statues.) 

Look  upon  this  brow  ! 

Has  not  any  finger 

Fully  moulded  it  ? 

And  all  this  bosom's  might 

Bares  itself  to  meet 

The  universal  danger  round  about. 

{Looking  at  a  female  statue. ) 

And  thou,  Pandora, 

Thou  sacred  vessel  of  all  gifts 

That  are  delicious 

Under  the  broad  heaven. 

Upon  the  infinite  earth, 

All  that  e'er  thrilled  me  with  emotion  sweet. 

That  in  the  shadow's  coolness 

Poured  refreshing  on  me, 

All  spring  delight  that  ever  the  sun's  love. 

All  tenderness  that  e'er 

The  sea's  warm  wave 

Around  my  bosom  poured. 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  81 

All  that  I  e'er  of  pure  celestial  glow 
Have  tasted,  or  of  joy  of  si)irit-rest  — 
This  all,  all  —  my  Pandora  !  " 

Prometheus  feels  that  lie  has  within  himself  all  the 
divine  attributes  that  he  knows  of,  or  can  conceive, 
—  power,  wisdom,  love.  In  only  one  thing  does  ho 
seem  inferior  to  Zeus,  in  that  he  has  not  the  power 
to  give  life  to  his  creations.  Zeus  has  offered  to  ani- 
mate them  for  him,  if  he  will  bow  down  and  worship 
him ;  but  Prometheus  contemptuously  refuses  any 
such  condition,  and  Athena,  that  is,  the  divinity 
within  him,  hastens  to  assure  him  that  Zeus,  what- 
ever he  may  pretend,  has  not  the  giving  or  the  taking 
away  of  life  in  his  power.  That  belongs  to  a  higher 
power,  whom  Athena  calls  Fate.  She  will  herself 
guide  Prometheus  to  the  spring  of  life,  and  his  crea- 
tions shall  live  through  him.     Prometheus  replies : 

"  Through  thee,  0  my  goddess. 
Shall  they  live  and  feel  them  free. 
Live  !     Their  joy  shall  be  tliy  thanks." 

Let  US  linger  a  moment  upon  this  word  Fate,  which 
the  inner  Wisdom  declares  to  be  higher  than  tlie 
gods,  to  be  the  source  of  life,  and  to  impart  that  life 
through  the  Titanic  spirit.  The  thought  expressed  by 
the  word  is  a  very  profound  one,  and  one  that  has  oc- 
cupied the  attention  of  the  greatest  thinkers  and  poets. 
Among  the  Greeks  it  had  many  names,  corresponding 
to  different  aspects  of  it,  Molpa,  Alcra,  JJeTTpojfievqj 
Eifiap/xevT],  Kijp,  ^AvdyKT)  or  Necessity.  In  their 
minds  it  generally  lay,  as  a  dim,  illimitable,  inscru- 

6 


82  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF  GOETHE. 

table  background,  behind  the  brilliant  array  of  their 
numerous  gods,  as  something  superior  to  the  gods 
and  against  which  they  had  no  power.  This  thought 
occurs  in  several  passages  of  the  Homeric  poems 
(II.  XVIII.  117,  XIX.  417,  &c.),  but  is  perhaps  most 
clearly  expressed  in  a  passage  from  the  third  book  of 
the  Odyssey  (236-238) : 

"  The  gods  themselves  have  not  the  power  to  save 
Whom  most  they  cherish  from  tlie  common  doom, 
When  cruel  Fate  brings  on  the  last  long  sleep." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  same  thought 
permeates  and  dominates  the  whole  of  J^schylus's 
tragedy  of  "  Prometheus."  Prometheus,  "the  high-spir- 
ited son  of  right-counselled  Justice,"  is  more  humane 
than  Zeus  himself,  and  farther-seeing.  The  conception 
of  divinity  embodied  in  Zeus  does  not  satisfy  him. 
Before  bis  mind  floats  a  higher  conception,  and  he 
has  learnt  from  his  mother,  Justice,  that  this  higher 
conception  shall  one  day  be  realized,  and  Zeus  hurled 
from  his  throne  by  one  "  who  will  find  a  flame  might- 
ier than  the  thunderbolt."  What  is  this  but  another 
way  of  saying  that  Prometheus  rebels  against  tlie 
external  god  of  the  popular  fancy  in  favor  of  that 
God  whom  justice  proclaims  in  his  heart  ?  He  knows 
and  feels  that  he  is  rooted  in  a  power  deeper  and 
mightier  than  Zeus,  a  fate  by  whose  eternal  decree 
he  lives  and  must  live  forever.  He  boasts,  "What 
should  I  fear,  who  am  fated  not  to  die  ? "  The  result 
is  that  Zeus  is  finally  compelled  to  release  him  from 
his  cruel  torment,  and  to  rise  to  the  height  of  tliat 


GOETHE'S  TITANISM.  83 

ideal  which  Prometheus  had  conceived.  That  inscru- 
table fate  whose  mouthpiece  is  Justice  is  greater 
than  any  god  conceived  or  conceivable  in  the  image 
of  man.  The  same  thought  tve  might  easily  find, 
more  or  less  clearly  expressed,  in  many  passages  from 
the  other  Greek  poets.  We  find,  indeed,  in  some  of 
them,  and  still  more  frequently  in  the  philosopliers, 
that  the  impersonal  Fate  is  identified  with  the  highest 
god,  that  is,  with  Zeus ;  but  this  does  not  alter  the 
character  of  that  fate.  When  Zeus  becomes  identified 
with  Fate,  he  loses  his  capricious,  tyrannical  attri- 
butes, and  becomes  that  which  no  imagination  can 
conceive  and  no  tongue  adequately  express,  —  in  a 
word,  he  becomes  the  Absolute  and  Eternal.  For, 
after  all,  the  Greek  conception  of  Fate  or  Necessity 
is,  at  bottom,  a  rude  conception  of  the  Absolute.  Tlie 
Greeks,  as  we  have  already  said,  were  far  on  their 
way  to  a  true  conception  of  the  Divine  under  all 
its  forms,  extension,  being,  and  love,  —  when  popu- 
lar Christianity,  with  its  Oriental,  mythological  con- 
cepts, took  possession  of  the  world  and  once  more 
imposed  upon  it  a  mythical  Deity,  conceived  in  the 
image  of  man. 

In  proportion  as  Christianity  found  its  way  among 
philosophers  and  thinkers,  the  notion  of  God  fostered 
by  it  became  less  and  less  mythical  and  more  and 
more  philosophical,  and,  indeed,  it  would  not  be  diffi- 
cult to  find  among  the  writers  of  the  two  great  ages 
of  ecclesiastical  thought  —  that  of  the  Fathers  and 
that  of  the  Schoolmen  —  expressions  for  the  Divine 


84  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

as  philosophical  as  any  that  occur  in  Plotinus  or  Por- 
phyry. In  no  case,  of  course,  is  the  expression  ade- 
quate ;  for  every  expression  for  the  Divine  must,  to  a 
large  extent,  be  negative. 

The  attempt  to  conceive  God  philosophically  is 
especially  marked  in  the  works  attributed  to  Diony- 
sius  the  Areopagite,  —  the  first  bishop  of  Athens  and 
the  patron  saint  of  Paris,  —  works  which  in  reality 
were  produced  about  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  of 
our  era,  under  strong  Neo-Platonic  influences.  Here 
we  are  told,  for  example,  that  "the  supra-essential 
One  limits  the  existing  one  and  all  number,  and  is 
itself  the  cause  and  principle  of  the  one  and  of  num- 
ber, and  at  the  same  time  the  number  and  the  order 
of  all  that  exists.  Hence  the  Deity,  who  is  exalted 
above  all  things,  is  praised  as  a  monad  and  as  a  triad, 
but  is  unknown  to  us  or  to  any  one,  whether  as 
monad  or  as  triad ;  in  order  to  praise  the  supra-unified 
in  him,  and  his  divine  creative  power,  we  apply  to 
him,  not  only  the  triadic  and  monadic  names,  but  we 
call  him  the  Nameless  One,  the  Super-essential,  to 
indicate  that  he  transcends  the  category  of  being." 
"We  might  find  similar  expressions  in  Augustine  and 
other  influential  waiters  of  the  patristic  period.  Sim- 
ilarly, in  that  most  famous  of  all  mediaeval  theologi- 
cal manuals,  the  "  Sentences  "  of  Peter  the  Lombard, 
we  find  it  said :  "  The  Trinity  is  a  supreme  thing 
and  common  to  all  that  enjoy  it,  if,  indeed,  it  can  be 
called  a  thing  and  not  rather  the  cause  of  all  things, 
or  if,  indeed,  it  can  be  called  so  much  as  a  cause." 


GOETHE'S  TITANISM.  85 

Similar  expressions  might  be  found  scattered  tlirougli 
the  schoohnen,  down  as  late  as  the  time  of  Suarez, 
who  was  contemporary  with  Descartes. 

Dante,  whose  conception  of  God  was  eminently 
philosophic,  tells  us  that  Holy  Writ,  in  condescension 
to  our  powers, 

*'  Doth  hands  and  feet 
Ascribe  to  God,  still  meaning  something  else." 

Although  Catholic  thought,  being  trammelled  by 
mythical  dogmas,  could  hardly  ever  have  arrived  at  a 
perfectly  consistent  philosophical  conception  of  God, 
it  had  made  very  considerable  advances  in  that  direc- 
tion, when  the  event  of  Protestantism  once  more  im- 
posed upon  a  large  j)ortion  of  the  world  an  intensified 
mythical  concept  of  the  Divine.  The  popular  god  of 
Catholicism,  or  rather  the  god  of  popular  Catholicism, 
a  very  different  being  from  the  god  of  philosophic 
Catholicism,  became  the  supreme  god  of  Protestantism. 
We  all  know,  probably  but  too  well,  the  conception  of 
God  ordinarily  held  in  Protestant  churches,  and  how 
little  it  differs  from  the  old  Greek  popular  concep- 
tion of  Zeus.  We  all  know,  too,  to  what  an  amount 
of  narrowness,  bigotry,  intolerance,  uncharitableness, 
misunderstanding,  oppression,  and  spiritual  pride  and 
deadness  it  has  given  rise.  We  know  how  compatible 
it  is  with  almost  every  form  of  selfishness  and  every 
form  of  economical  and  political  abuse.  The  Calvin- 
istic  form  of  this  conception  has  been  stated,  with  a 
scathing  force  that  can  hardly  be  excelled,  by  Burns, 
in  his  famous  "  Holy  Willie's  Prayer,"  which  begins : 


86  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

"  0  Thou,  wha  in  the  heavens  dost  dwell, 
Wha  as  it  pleases  best  Tliysel' 
Sends  ane  to  heaven  and  ten  to  hell, 

A'  for  thy  glory, 
An'  no  for  ony  guid  or  ill 

They  've  done  afore  thee." 

Burns  too  was  a  Titan,  and  despised  this  monstrous 
God  with  all  his  heart. 

It  was  not  merely  against  the  cruel  and  blasphe- 
mous conception  of  God  entertained  by  Calvin  that 
Goethe's  Titanic  scorn  was  directed,  but  against  the 
entire  Protestant  conception  of  him,  and  against 
everything  that  followed  naturally  from  that  concep- 
tion. The  words  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Prometheus,  as  he  sits  forming  men  in  his  workshop, 
after  having  refused  all  offers  of  a  compromise  with 
Zeus,  no  doubt  accurately  express  his  own  feelings 
with  reference  to  the  Protestant  conception  of  God. 
He  says : 

*'  While  I  was  yet  a  child, 
Not  knowing  out  or  in, 
I  turned  my  straying  eye 
Sunwards,  as  if  above  me  were 
An  ear  to  hear  my  plaint, 
A  heart  like  mine 
To  pity  the  heavily-laden. 

"  Who  helped  me 
Against  the  Titans'  arrogance  ? 
Who  rescued  me  from  death, 
From  slavery  ? 

Hast  thou  not  all  achieved  thyself, 
Heart  of  sacred  glow  ? 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  87 

And,  young  and  good,  didst  glow, 
Poor  dupe,  with  gratitude 
To  him  who  sleeps  above  ? 

"  I  honor  thee  ?    Wherefore  ? 

Hast  thou  e'er  soothed  the  anguish 

Of  the  heavily-laden  ? 

Hast  ever  wiped  away  the  tears 
.  Of  the  grief-oppressed  ? 

Have  I  not  been  forged  into  a  man 

By  almighty  Time 

And  by  eternal  Fate, 

My  lords  and  thine  ? 

"  And  didst  thou  fancy 
I  should  hate  life 
Aud  flee  to  deserts 
Because  all  blossom-dreams 
Did  not  bear  fruit  ? 
Here  sit  I  and  mould  men 
After  mine  own  image, 
A  race  to  be  like  me, 
To  suS"er  and  to  weep, 
To  enjoy  and  to  be  glad. 
And  pay  no  heed  to  thee. 
Like  me." 

This  poem  was  written  in  1773,  two  years  after 
the  heroic  radical  "Gotz  von  Berlichingen,"  and 
one  year  before  the  still  more  radical  "  Werther,"  in 
which  the  worst  part  of  Goethe's  Titanic  tendencies 
culminated.  "  Prometheus "  gives  us  Titanism  in 
the  classic  world ;  "  Gotz,"  Titanism  in  the  mediaeval 
world;  "AVerther,"  Titanism  in  the  modern  world, 
or  rather  in  the  seething  world  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  previous  to  tlie  French  Eevolution.     Of  tlje 


88  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

three  works,  "  Prometheus "  is  tlie  one  that  repre- 
sents best  the  spirit  of  Goethe's  own  Titanism,  that 
Titanism  which  remained  with  him  through  life. 
The  hero  of  "  Gotz  "  comes  to  an  untimely  and  dis- 
appointed end,  to  a  death  of  admitted  defeat,  through 
the  pressure  of  outward  circumstances.  The  hero 
of  "  Werther  "  does  still  worse,  for  he  puts  an  end  to 
his  own  life.  Prometheus  alone  remains  Titanic  to 
the  last,  defying,  and  with  impunity  defying,  all  ex- 
ternal circumstances,  strong  in  the  strength  of  that 
divinity  which  glows  with  a  holy  flame  in  his  own 
heart.  And,  indeed,  from  the  point  of  view  of  po- 
etic justice,  this  is  as  it  should  be.  The  Titanism 
which  strugi^les  for  individual  freedom  throusfh  mere 
physical  courage  and  strength,  without  due  regard  to 
existiuCT  institutions  and  moral  conditions,  must  neces- 
sarily  suffer  defeat.  Independence  for  an  individual 
baron  would  be  a  retrogression  toward  barbarism  and 
anarchy.  On  the  other  hand,  that  Titanism  which 
seeks  personal  satisfaction  in  passive  sentiment,  how- 
ever refined,  instead  of  in  rational  activity,  must  not 
only  necessarily  fail,  but  must  end  by  making  life 
worthless  to  the  person  who  attempts  it.  He  needs 
no  outward  circumstances  to  destroy  him :  the  out- 
raged god  within  him  will  be  quite  sufficient  for 
that.  Prometheus,  whose  delight  is  in  creative  ac- 
tivity, in  loving  obedience  to  the  Divinity  within  him, 
can  alone  safely  and  defiantly  carry  out  his  Titan- 
ism to  the  end.  Naught  can  touch  him  who  himself 
gives  up  all. 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  89 

It  is  a  significant  enough  fact  that  the  drama  of 
"  Prometheus "  was  never  completed,  much  as  the 
central  figure  was  a  favorite  with  Goethe.  And  the 
reason  of  this  is  curious.  Goethe  himself  some- 
where tells  us  that  his  different  works  represent 
stages  in  his  own  culture,  and  that  the  completion  of 
each  work  .marked  the  completion  of  the  stage.  No 
doubt  his  individual  Titanism  ended  with  "  Gotz," 
and  his  sentimental  Titanism,  in  large  measure  at 
least,  with  "  Werther."  But  his  Promethean  Titanism 
never  ended,  until  the  last  day  of  his  life.  It  was 
an  abiding  fact  in  his  life,  indeed  perhaps  the  most 
important  fact  in  it,  the  source  of  all  other  important 
facts.  P>ut  Goethe,  whose  spiritual  progress  was  very 
rapid  in  those  years,  could  not  but  soon  come  to  see 
that  the  conflict  between  Prometlieus  and  Zeus,  the 
envious  thunderer,  could  in  no  adequate  way  express 
the  depth  and  extent  of  his  own  Titanism.  Zeus 
could  not  be  made  to  do  duty  as  the  conservative 
Philistine  God  of  Protestantism,  and  Prometheus 
could  not  be  made  to  represent  all  the  forms  of  oppo- 
sition which  had  to  be  directed  against  that  God. 

So  Goethe,  after  writing  two  brief  acts  (and  part  of 
a  third)  of  his  "  Prometheus,"  abandoned  it,  and  in 
the  following  year  set  to  work  upon  another  theme, 
in  which  he  must  have  felt  that  liis  own  Titanism 
could  be  much  better  embodied, — a  theme  drawn  from 
the  annals  of  Protestantism  itself,  —  the  story  of 
Faust.  This  theme  had  several  advantages  over  the 
other,  besides  modernness  and  adaption  to  Goethe's 


90  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

own  state  of  mind.  It  enabled  him  to  show  the 
ffradual  grrowth  of  the  true  Titauism,  out  of  the 
many  forms  of  false  Titanism,  to  develop  its  posi- 
tive and  beneficent  side,  instead  of  its  negative  and 
defiant  side,  and  to  depict  the  nature  of  its  ultimate 
triumph. 

In  "  Prometheus  "  the  narrow  jealous  Zeus,  the  god 
of  popular  fancy,  still  reigns  supreme,  while  the  Infi- 
nite God  "  whose  throne  is  in  nien's  hearts  "  occupies 
an  unrecognized  position  of  patient  defiance,  mould- 
ing men  after  his  own  image.  In  "Faust,"  on  the 
contrary,  the  inner,  the  Infinite  God  is  already  su- 
preme lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  seated  in  power 
among  the  cherubim  and  seraphim,  while  Zeus,  or 
the  god  of  narrow  selfishness,  is  relegated  to  a  small 
sphere  in  the  affairs  of  human  kind.  He  is,  in  fact, 
"der  kleine  Gott  der  Welt,"  the  little  god  of  the 
world,  or  rather  of  worldliness,  who,  as  Mephistophe- 
les  says,  "always  remains  of  the  same  fashion,  and 
is  as  queer  as  on  the  first  day."  To  be  sure  he  has 
a  glimmer  of  heaven's  light, —  even  Zeus  had  that; 
but  he  uses  it  only  to  be  more  beastly  than  every 
other  beast.  The  Supreme  God,  on  the  contrary, 
the  Lord,  so  far  from  being  jealous  of  any  one,  can 
afford  to  tolerate  the  very  devil,  and  even  finds  a 
use  for  him.  His  amenity  is  so  great  as  to  surprise 
that  dignitary,  who  remarks,  at  the  end  of  his  inter- 
view with  him,  that 

"  It  is  r^uite  handsome  in  so  great  a  lord 
To  speak  so  kindly  witli  the  devil  himself." 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  91 

The  dethroned  divinity,  the  god  of  worldliness, 
does  not  appear  anywhere  in  the  poem  as  a  distinct 
person,  nor  indeed  does  the  Supreme  Divinity,  ex- 
cept in  the  Prologue.  The  Deity,  who  reveals  him- 
self in  the  conscience,  and  the  little  god  of  the  world, 
who  for  the  most  part  directs  human  institutions, 
alike  appear  only  as  tendencies  working  silently.  The 
former  shows  his  power  by  continually  preventing 
Faust  from  yielding  to  the  allurements  of  Mephis- 
topheles,  the  latter  appears  in  the  form  of  official  re- 
ligion, which  finds  its  most  striking  embodiment  in 
the  Astrologer  at  the  imperial  court.  This  dignitary 
is  ready  at  once  to  enter  into  close  alliance  with 
Mephistopheles,  even  when  the  latter  plays  the  part 
of  court  fool,  so  much  so,  that,  when  asked  how 
things  look  in  heaven,  —  "  Wie  sieht's  am  Himmel 
aus?"  —  he  replies  in  a  mock-serious,  meaningless 
speech  whispered  into  his  ear  by  Mephistopheles. 

The  difference  between  the  relative  positions  of  the 
great  and  the  little  deity  in  "  Prometheus "  and  in 
"  Faust "  really  marks  the  difference  between  the  rela- 
tive positions  of  conscience  and  human  law  in  ancient 
and  modern  times.  In  ancient  times,  the  laws  of  the 
state  and  of  society,  both  written  and  unwritten,  were 
held  to  be  superior  to  the  individual  conscience, 
whose  exercise  in  opposition  to  them,  as  in  the  case 
of  Sokrates,  could  be  regarded  only  as  v^pi<;,  inso- 
lence, or  insubordination.  In  modern  times,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  universally  held  that  conscience,  when 
sane,  has  a  higher  claim   than  any   human   decree. 


92  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

It  was  doubtless  this  fact  among  others  that  made 
Goethe  select  Faust,  rather  than  Prometheus,  as 
the  representative  of  his  own  Titanism,  It  must  be 
remarked,  too,  that  Faust's  consciousness  of  the  Su- 
preme Divinity  is  at  first  very  slight  compared  with 
that  of  Prometheus.  He  appears  in  all  his  splendor 
to  the  latter  from  the  first,  in  the  person  of  Athena, 
and  draws  forth  his  most  ardent  love  and  conse- 
quent activity.  Faust  is  hardly  conscious  of  him  at 
all,  except  as  a  vague  feeling  that  somehow  directs 
him  in  the  midst  of  his  dark  strivings.  The  Lord 
says  to  Mephistopheles,  speaking  of  Faust : 

"  Though  but  confusedly  he  serves  me  now, 
Yet  will  I  soon  conduct  him  into  clearness."  • 

Goethe's  Titanism,  then,  is  Prometheanism,  only 
with  the  relative  position  of  the  two  deities,  the  great 
and  the  little,  changed,  and  the  vision  of  the  former 
dimmed  in  the  soul.  Whereas  Prometheus  lives  to 
obey  the  Supreme  God,  whom  he  knows  and  loves, 
and  is,  therefore,  supremely  happy  in  his  defiance, 
Faust  toils  on  in  darkness,  seeking  the  vision  of  this 
hiuhest  God,  whom  he  finds  at  last,  when  he  reaches 
the  philanthropic  position  {^iX.dvOpcc'jro^  t/ootto?,  as 
^.schylus  says)  of  Prometheus.  Though  Faust  is  by 
no  means  Goethe,  yet  Faust's  problems  are  those 
which  most  profoundly  occupied  the  mind  of  Goethe. 
Goethe's  life,  with  all  its  activities,  in  so  far  as  they 
had  his  own  approval,  was  a  Titanic  struggle  against 
the  god  of  the  world,  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
God   whom  he  felt  in  his  own  soul,  and  whom  he 


GOETHE'S   TITAN  ISM.  93 

recognized  as  speaking  out  of  the  very  de^jths  of 
being,  with  the  voice  of  Fate  and  Justice,  which  in 
tlie  last  result  are  one.  The  conception  of  this  God 
which  we  find  in  Prometheus  is  not  materially 
altered  in  Faust,  except  that  in  the  latter  more 
emphasis  is  placed  upon  the  fact  that  the  wisdom 
which  speaks  with  authority  in  the  human  heart  and 
intellect  is  also  Lord  of  the  universe.  Further  we 
cannot  go ;  at  least,  further  Goethe  could  not  go. 
He  deprecated  all  attempts  to  define  God  as  a  person, 
or  as  anything  else.  When  Margaret  asks  Faust 
concerning  his  belief  in  God,  the  latter  replies : 

"  My  darling,  who  dare  say, 
I  believe  in  God  ? 
Mayst  question  priest  or  sage, 
And  their  answer  seems  to  be 
But  mockery  of  the  asker." 

And  when  Margaret  persists  with 

"  Then  you  do  not  believe  ? " 

Faust  replies  in  the  much  admired  speech,  of  which 
I  shall  quote  only  a  part : 

"  Mishear  me  not,  thou  gracious  countenance  ! 
Who  dare  name  him, 
And  who  confess 
I  believe  in  him  ? 
Who  can  feel 
And  have  the  courage 
To  say,  I  believe  not  in  him  ? 

"Doth  not  all  crowd 
Into  thy  head  and  heart. 
And  pulse  in  everlasting  mystery 


94  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF  GOETHE. 

Invisible,  visible,  beside  thee  ? 

Fill  full  thy  heart  therewith,  in  all  its  bulk, 

And  when  in  feeling  thou  art  wholly  blest, 

Then  name  it  what  thou  wilt, 

Say  bliss  !  heart !  love  !  God  ! 

I  have  no  name 

For  it  !     Feeling  is  all ; 

Name  is  sound  and  smoke,    ' 

Beclouding  heaven's  glow." 

This  speech  has  been  very  much  admired,  as  em- 
bodying the  highest  conception  of  divinity  possible 
for  man.  I  think  it  is  the  highest  conception  of  di- 
vinity to  which  Goethe  ever  attained,  and  the  one 
under  the  influence  of  which  he  played  the  Titan 
against  the  God  of  popular  tradition  and  worldliness. 
But  it  is  by  no  means  the  highest  conception  of  God, 
and  its  limitations  mark  Goethe's  own  limitations, 
and  the  defects  in  his  Titanism.  Two  elements,  and 
perhaps  the  most  important  of  all,  are  omitted,  — 
truth  and  right,  —  in  one  word,  holiness.  The  God  of 
Faust,  who  is  in  the  main  the  God  of  Goethe,  is  not 
a  moral  God,  and  Emerson  was  entirely  right  when 
he  maintained  that  Goethe  was  incapable  of  a  sur- 
render to  the  moral  sentiment.  The  simple  fact  is, 
that  the  moral  sentiment,  pure  and  simple,  found 
no  utterance  in  Goethe's  heart,  and  hence  could  not 
appear  in  his  God,  who  was  but  the  bearer  of  the 
utterances  that  were  found  there. 

It  may  perhaps  be  objected,  that  it  is  unfair  to 
attribute  to  Goethe  a  conception  of  God  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Faust  at  a  time  when  that  hero  was  still 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  95 

far  from  God ;  and  this  would  be  correct,  if  it  could 
be  shown  that  Goethe  ever  attained  to  any  higher 
conception.  Such,  however,  I  have  not  been  able  to 
find  in  his  works  or  in  his  life.  Faust  himself  at- 
tains to  no  riper  conception,  even  in  heaven.  We 
find  many  instances  in  which  Goethe  shows  his 
comprehension  of  the  divine  nature,  by  declaring  it 
to  be  in  things,  and  not  outside  of  them,  and  by 
refusing  to  define  it  in  the  imperfect  forms  of  speech. 
In  a  short  series  of  poems  called  "  Gott  und  Welt," 
he  writes  : 

"  What  were  a  god  that  pushed  but  from  without. 
And  let  the  world  about  his  finger  spin  ? 
God  must  be  one  who  moves  the  world  within, 
Nature  in  Him,  Himself  in  Nature  holding, 
So  that  what  in  Him  lives  and  moves  and  is 
May  never  miss  His  power.  His  spirit  never." 

And  again : 


"a^ 


"  There  is  a  universe  within  the  soul, 
And  hence  all  nations  laudably  permit 
Each  man  to  call  the  best  he  knoweth  God, 
Yea,  his  God,  to  deliver  to  Him  earth 
And  heaven,  to  fear,  and,  if  he  can,  to  love  Him." 

In  "Wilhelm  Meister's  Wanderjahre,"  in  speaking 
of  the  three  forms  of  reverence,  (1)  for  that  which  is 
above  us,  (2)  for  that  which  is  below  us,  (3)  for 
that  which  is  on  a  level  with  us,  he  says  :  — 

"  These  three  produce  together  the  true  religion. 
From  these  three  reverences  springs  the  highest  rever- 
ence, reverence  for  oneself,  and  this  again  is  the  source 


96  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

of  the  other  three.  Hence  man  arrives  at  the  highest  of 
which  he  is  capable,  by  being  allowed  to  consider  himself 
the  best  that  God  and  Nature  have  produced." 

In  1813,  writing  to  Jacobi,  he  says  :  — 

"  I,  for  my  part,  with  the  manifold  tendencies  of  my 
nature,  do  not  find  one  aspect  of  the  Divine  enough.  As 
a  poet,  I  am  a  polytheist ;  as  an  investigator  of  nature, 
I  am  a  pantheist,  and  both  in  the  same  degree.  If  I 
require  a  personal  god  for  my  personality  as  a  moral 
being,  that  also  has  been  provided  for  in  my  mental  con- 
stitution." 

This  last  is  perhaps  the  most  explicit  declaration 
we  have  of  Goethe's  theological  belief,  and  it  is  a 
most  important  one,  as  showing  the  character  of  the 
Divinity  under  whose  inspiration  he  played  the  Titan 
against  the  popular  Divinity  of  his  time.  This  Di- 
vinity is  conceived  as  above  number,  equally  capable 
of  being  conceived  as  one  and  as  many,  as  occasion 
may  require.  In  so  far  as  he  is  a  person,  he  is  identical 
with  Goethe's  own  personality,  the  very  inmost  core 
and  essence  of  that.  The  notion  of  an  individual,  per- 
sonal God,  existing  outside  of  him,  Goethe  rejected 
with  the  utmost  scorn,  and  in  so  doing  returned  to 
the  philosophic  position  of  developed  Hellenism, — 
to  the  position  of  the  Neo-Platouists,  —  as  opposed  to 
the  mythical  view  of  Christianity,  and  especially  of 
Protestantism. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  Goethe  was  a  Pagan. 
Even  his  biographer  Diintzer  gives  him  this  appella- 


GOETHE'S   riTANISM.  97 

tion.  This  is  not  only  correct,  but  it  is  correct  in  a 
deeper  sense  than  is  generally  known.  We  have  seen 
that  the  three  forms  under  which  the  Divine  has  been 
conceived  are  space  (or  extension),  being,  and  love. 
These  appear  in  Christian  theology  in  the  mythical 
forms  of  the  Father,  who  is  being,  the  Son,  who  is 
space,  the  condition  of  creation,  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
who  is  love,  the  source  of  all  action  in  the  world,  as 
even  Empedokles  saw.  The  aspect  of  the  Divinity 
which  most  struck  the  Hebrews,  and  which,  conse- 
quently, is  uppermost  in  Christ's  teacliing,  is  that  of 
being,  or  of  the  Father.  Now,  it  is  just  this  aspect  of 
him  that  is  the  ground  of  morality ;  for  morality  has 
its  foundation,  not  in  extension  or  in  love,  but  in  the 
very  depths  of  being.  Even  love  itself  has  a  moral 
significance  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  distributed  in 
accordance  with  the  recognized  exigencies  of  being. 
For  this  reason  the  Hebrews  were  pre-eminently  a 
moral  people,  a  people  ready  to  bow  before  the  author- 
ity of  the  Divine,  a  people,  when  at  their  best,  obe- 
dient even  unto  death,  for  the  sake  of  the  right.  Job 
can  say  (I  quote  from  the  revised  version) :  "  Behold, 
He  will  slay  me ;  I  have  no  hope ;  nevertheless,  I 
will  maintain  my  ways  before  Him.  This  also  shall 
be  my  salvation."  (xiii.  15,  16.)  Now  it  was  just  the 
moral  aspect  of  Divinity  that  was  wanting  in  Helle- 
nism. The  Neo-Platonists  were  careful  to  say  that 
God  was  above  being  {eireKeiva  rov  ovto^),  and  hence 
above  the  good.     In  saying  this,  they  thought  they 

were  honoring  Him  ;  but  in  truth  they  were  losing 

7 


t 


98  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

the  moral  aspect  of  Hira ;  for  the  ground  of  all  mo- 
rality is  being.  The  immoral  is  simply  that  which 
contravenes  the  essential  laws  of  being,  that  which 
strives  to  be  and  cannot. 

This  failure  to  recognize  God  as  being  and  as  the 
ground  of  morality  was  the  essential  weakness  of 
Hellenism  from  first  to  last,  although,  as  one  might 
have  expected,  it  was  formulated  only  when  that  sys- 
tem was  near  its  close.  Movements  formulate  them- 
selves only  at  their  close.  Goethe  then,  in  being  a 
Pagan,  as  he  was,  failed  to  see  the  moral  aspect  of  the 
Divine.  He  saw  it  as  omnipresence  and  as  love, 
but  not  as  authority.  His  highest  god  was  not  the 
absolute  right  and  good ;  it  was  rather  the  beautiful. 
Nay,  it  was  not  even  the  highest  kind  of  beauty,  that 
which  moulds  a  life 

*'  In  loveliness  of  perfect  deeds 
More  strong  than  all  poetic  thought." 

It  was  rather  the  half-sensuous  beauty  which  is  capa- 
ble of  being  expressed  in  symmetry  and  rhythm,  the 
two  forms  in  which  harmony  displays  itself  in  space 
and  time.  Calm,  serenity,  balance,  freedom  from  strife, 
from  Sturm  und  Drang,  —  these  were  the  attributes 
of  that  perfection  which  Goethe  aimed  at,  and  which 
therefore  was  his  God.  The  still,  adamantine  strength 
which  speaks  out  the  truth  witliout  thought  of  conse- 
quences to  self,  that  courts  strife  as  the  life  of  the 
world,  that  is  so  strong  as  to  be  ready  to  accept  suf- 
fering unflinchingly,  which  seeks  satisfaction  in  ser- 
vice and  self-diffusion,  —  this  was  not  Goethe's  ideal. 


GOETHE'S  TITANISM.  99 

Goethe  was  an  artist,  his  spirit  and  temperament  were 
those  of  the  artist,  not  those  of  the  martyr.  Like  an 
artist,  he  labored  for  finish,  for  completion,  which  has 
a  term ;  not  for  perfection,  which  stretches  away  into 
the  eternal.  He  saw  what  was  in  process  around 
him  and  divined  a  good  deal  more  ;  but  that  which 
lay  behind  tlie  process  he  did  not  see.  He  saw  evo- 
lution, but  caught  no  glimpse  of  that  which  evolves. 
In  one  word,  he  lacked  what  Parmenides  called  faith, 
the  vision  of  the  eternal,  of  that  which  is,  of  God. 
He  could  see  some  of  God's  relations,  —  those  to  art, 
nature,  and  his  own  personality,  —  but  God  himself 
he  could  not  see.  Hence  in  Goethe  there  is  none  of 
the  martyr  spirit.  The  thought  of  dying  to  make  men 
holy,  or  even  to  make  them  free,  could  never  enter 
into  his  calculations.  He  wished  to  make  his  own 
life  a  complete  poem,  finished  and  harmonious  in 
this  world,  and  it  was  for  the  sake  of  this  harmony 
that  he  demanded  renunciation  of  the  discordant  ele- 
ments. The  utter  renunciation  of  self,  of  the  natu- 
ral self,  in  order  to  find  a  self  that  is  above  nature, 
above  process,  individual,  yet  infinite  and  perfect  as 
the  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect,  was  a  state 
of  mind  he  could  not  rise  to.  He  could  not,  in  a 
word,  combine  Christianity  with  Hellenism,  which  is 
the  problem  of  our  time,  but  remained  essentially 
Hellenic.  The  god  in  whose  name  he  titanized  was 
still  an  imperfect  god,  a  duality,  not  a  trinity. 

The  reason  why  Goethe  failed  to  find  the  highest 
God,  when  men  like  Dante,  that  mightiest  of  the  mod- 


100  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

ern  Titans,  succeeded,  is  not  hard  to  discover.     It  lay 
partly  in  his  own  temperament,  which  was  sensuous 
and  made  heavy  demands.     It  lay  partly  in  his  edu- 
cation, which  did  not  go  far  to  curb  that  temperament 
and  subject  it  to  divine  law.     But  it  lay  also  in  the 
philosophical  atmosphere  of  his  time,  in  the  clouds  of 
Spinozism  and  Kantianism  that  went  to  darken  the 
atmosphere.    Say  what  it  may  to  the  contrary,  modern 
philosophy  from  Descartes  to  Spencer  is  atheistic  in 
the  deepest  sense.     It  is  essentially  a  philosophy  of 
process,  not  of  being,  —  of  genealogy,  not  of  ontology. 
Now  God,  essential  being,  is  just  that  which  lies  out- 
side of  all  process,  that  transcends  all  evolution,  that 
imparts  all  movement,  but  does  not  itself  move.     We 
may  call  other  things  God,  —  the  process  of  events, 
the  current  that  makes  for  righteousness ;  but  in  do- 
ing so  we  are  idolaters,  setting  up  the  idols  of  our 
imagination  for  God.     And  the  idols  of  the  imagina- 
tion are  far  worse  gods  than  the  graven  images  of 
men's  hands.    When  the  pure  intellect  and  its  object, 
essential  being,  are  banished  from  philosophy,  God 
and  the  true  ground  of  moral  being  will  soon  be  ban- 
ished from  life,  and  false  gods,  or  no  god,  will  soon 
take  His  place. 

But,  besides  the  three  causes  mentioned  as  pre- 
venting Goethe  from  attaining  to  the  highest  con- 
sciousness of  Divinity,  there  was  still  a  fourth,  —  the 
direction  of  his  studies,  which  was  toward  nature 
and  the  emotional  or  sensuous  side  of  spirit.  Goethe 
rather  despised  logic  and  metaphysics,  the  sciences 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  101 

of  pure  spirit,  but  these  sciences  had  their  revenge, 
as  they  never  fail  to  do,  and  as  his  own  Mephis- 
topheles,  as  conceived  in  his  youth,  knew  that  they 
did. 

"  Only  despise  intelligence  and  science, 
The  highest  powers  accorded  unto  man  ! 
In  things  of  glamour  and  of  magic  let 
Thyself  be  hoodwinked  by  the  spirit  of  lies,  — 
Then  have  I  thee  at  once  without  condition." 

Of  course,  no  one  would  think  of  saying  that  Goethe 
fell  a  prey  to  Mephistopheles,  or  that  he  w^as  a  bad 
man.  On  the  contrary,  Goethe  was  a  good  man,  in 
very  many  senses  a  great  man :  he  was  a  Titan, 
trying  to  steal  divine  fire  to  better  human  lives,  and 
in  a  large  degree  succeeding.  But,  after  all,  it  was 
not  the  purest  fire  that  he  stole,  but  a  fire  dimmed 
with  the  smoke  of  sweet  incense. 

Let  us  now  try  to  sum  up  the  character  of  Goethe's 
Titanism,  and  to  show  wherein  it  was  manly  and  be- 
neficent, and  where  it  fell  short  of  the  highest.  Its 
greatness  consisted  mainly  in  this,  that  it  warred 
against  the  external  enslaving  god  of  tradition  and 
conventionality,  with  all  his  belongings  in  the  shape 
of  human  institutions,  and  did  so  in  the  name  of  the 
internal,  freeing  God  whose  kingdom  is  within  us, 
whose  being  is  our  being,  who  exists  in  every  human 
soul,  making  us  one  with  the  Father  and  capable  of 
being  perfect  as  he  is  perfect.  Its  shortcomings 
were  all  due  to  the  fact  that  Goethe  was  unable  to 
conceive  this  inner  God  in  his  full  majesty  of  ab- 
solute insight,  love,  and  diffusive  power.     And  this 


102  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

inability  again  was  certainly  due  to  the  fact,  that  in 
Goethe  himself  the  inner  God  was  not  revealed  in  all 
his  majesty.  Only  the  pure  in  heart  see  God,  and 
this  for  the  reason  that  the  heart  is  the  eye  where- 
with God  is  seen. 

But  though  this  is  strictly  true,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  Goetlie  struggled  manfully  during  his  long  life 
V  to  remove  the  film  from  his  eye,  and  obtain  a  clearer 
and  ever  clearer  view  of  the  Divine.  If  he  did  not 
at  any  time  entirely  succeed,  tliat  was  his  misfortune, 
in  the  garb  indeed  of  fortune,  rather  than  his  fault. 

And  this  leads  me  to  say  a  word  of  the  different 
stages  of  Goethe's  Titanism,  which  I  have  inten- 
tionally left  to  the  end.  It  is  generally  said  that  it 
was  confined  to  the  early  part  of  his  life,  and  practi- 
cally ended  with  his  visit  to  Italy.  Now  in  a  certain 
superficial  sense  this  is  true,  but  only  in  a  superficial 
sense.  It  was  considerably  transformed  before  he 
started  for  Italy ;  but  it  did  not  altogether  cease  at 
any  period  of  his  life,  though  it  tended  ever  more  and 
more  to  become  a  compromise.  The  "  little  god  of  the 
world,"  under  the  influence  of  the  great  God,  has  be- 
come much  wiser  since  the  days  when  Zeus  sent  Pro- 
metheus to  the  limits  of  the  world,  to  be  riveted  to  a 
rock  and  to  have  his  liver  torn  by  vultures.  He  now 
not  unfrequeutly  takes  the  new  Prometheuses  into 
his  service,  and  makes  them  privy-councillors,  thus 
rendering  them  in  large  measure  innocuous  and  ob- 
taining from  them  much  good  for  themselves.  To 
drop  metaphor,  Goethe's  persistent  good  fortune,  in 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  103 

the  course  of  time,  tamed  and  soothed  his  Titanism 
and  ever  made  him  more  desirous  of  finding  a  recon- 
ciliation between  the  world-spirit  and  the  supreme  in- 
ward God.  This  tendency  assumed  tbe  form  almost 
of  homage  to  the  world-spirit  in  the  later  part  of 
Goethe's  life,  especially  during  that  reactionary  period 
which  followed  the  excesses  of  the  French  Eevolu- 
tion,  when  men,  wearied  with  Titanic  struggling  and 
in  a  measure  cheated  of  its  results,  turned  back  with 
a  kind  of  pathetic  fondness  to  the  obsolete  systems 
of  the  past,  seeking  for  rest  anywhere,  even  in  a  mon- 
astery. It  would  be  wrong  to  say  that  Goethe  at 
any  time  proved  a  traitor  to  the  highest  God,  and 
did  homage  only  to  Baal ;  but  that  he  was  deeply 
affected  by  the  reactionary  spirit  that  prevailed  dur- 
ing the  last  decade  of  his  life,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
More  and  more  he  became  averse  to  Titanic  revolu- 
tion, more  and  more  in  favor  of  quiet  evolution. 
He  disliked  the  volcanic  theory  even  in  geology,  and 
said  that  the  Protestant  Eeformation  had  disturbed 
quiet  evolution  {stortc  ruhigc  Bildung).  This  ten- 
dency becomes  apparent  more  or  less  in  all  that  he 
wrote  after  Schiller's  death,  but  especially  in  the  clos- 
ing scene  of  the  Second  Part  of  "  Faust."  Here,  in 
the  summing  up  of  his  greatest  work,  a  work  begun 
in  the  Promethean  spirit,  some  sixty  years  before,  he 
altogether  abandons  the  Titanic  position,  and  seems 
to  revert  to  the  submissive  attitude  of  Eoman  Cathol- 
icism. Faust  reaches  heaven,  not  by  his  own  efforts, 
and  by  bringing  the  reigning  Divinity  to  terms,  but 


\^ 


104  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

by  the  help  of  good  angels,  conceived  as  the  Middle 
Age  conceived  them,  and  by  the  levitating  power  of 
the  purified  spirit  whom  he  had  once  wronged.  He 
not  merely  effects  a  reconciliation  with  the  popular 
God,  but  he  makes  entire  submission  to  him,  allow- 
ing himself  to  be  carried  to  heaven,  like  a  media3val 
saint  from  the  cloister.  No  doubt  Goethe  allowed 
Faust,  as  a  man  of  the  sixteenth  century,  to  do  things 
which  he  himself  would  not  have  done;  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that,  as  Goethe  became  an  old  man, 
his  early  Titanism  tended  to  lose  itself  in  compromise 
and  even  submission.  "  The  wise  indifference  of  the 
wise  "  unfortunately  often  takes  this  direction. 
■  But,  after  all,  this  tendency  in  Goethe's  case  is  not 
a  matter  for  surprise.  His  Titanism  had  not  at 
any  time  been  of  that  kind  which  imparts  perfect 
satisfaction  to  the  Titan,  and  can  therefore  endure  for- 
ever. In  that  Titanism  there  was  always  an  artistic 
and  somewhat  sensuous  element  of  self.  He  could 
never  entirely  surrender  himself  to  the  God  within 
him,  in  utter  self-forgetful ness,  careless  of  happiness. 
He  is  said  to  have  asserted,  with  some  pathos,  toward 
the  end  of  his  long  and  marvellously  fortunate  life, 
that  he  had  never,  in  all  that  life,  known  more  than 
an  hour's  happiness.  This  shows  what  he  had  been 
seeking  for,  shows  the  defect  in  his  Titanism,  shows 
why  it  ended  in  compromise  and  submission.  It 
shows  also  why  his  literary  work  is,  after  all,  so  frag- 
mentary, and  why  many  of  his  contemporaries  con- 
demned him  as  a  renegade  to  progress  and  humanity. 


GOETHE'S   TITANISM.  105 

Had  Goethe,  in  the  days  of  his  early  Titanism,  seen 
God,  the  inner  God,  as  authority,  as  being,  and  not 
merely  as  omnipresence  and  love,  the  case  would 
have  been  different.  No  compromise  would  have 
been  needed,  the  want  of  happiness  would  not  have 
been  felt,  his  works  would  have  had  the  glorious 
unity  of  the  "  Divina  Commedia,"  and  he  would  have 
been  recognized  as  the  uncompromising  Titan,  the 
manifestation  of  Very  God. 

The  truth  is,  Goethe  wavered  between  the  Chris- 
tian spirit  and  the  later  Hellenic  spirit,  without  ever 
being  able  to  unite  them,  for  the  reason  that  he  never 
seized  either  in  its  purity.  This  union  is  the  great 
problem  of  our  time.  To  reject  the  outer  god  of 
mythology,  and  all  his  works,  — to  cling  .to  the  inner 
God,  who  is  the  very  life  of  our  life,  the  self  of  our 
self,  —  to  crush  out  mercilessly  the  little  temporal  self 
in  ourselves,  in  order  that  the  great,  the  eternal,  the 
divine  self  may  be  free  to  manifest  itself,  —  that  is 
our  task ;  a  task  to  be  performed  titanically  by  our- 
selves and  by  none  other.  There  is  no  salvation  any- 
where but  in  our  deepest  selves,  no  light  anywhere 
but  in  the  hidden  shrines  which  we  call  our  own  souls. 
No  outer  God,  with  the  best  of  wills,  can  save  us ; 
for  salvation  means  being  strong  in  and  through  our- 
selves. It  is  a  poor  charity  that  pampers  weakness, 
instead  of  making  strong,  that  tries  to  make  depend- 
ents, suppliants,  and  thralls,  instead  of  free,  pure 
men  and  women,  obedient  only  to  the  laws  of  that 
kingdom  of  heaven  which  is  within  them,  and  striv- 


106  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

ing  to  be  perfect,  as  the  Father  which  is  in  that 
heaven  is  perfect. 

That  Goethe  did  not  attain  to  this  point  of  view 
is  a  matter  to  be  regretted,  but  not  one  for  which  we 
can  afford  to  blame  the  great  poet.  For  many  a  long 
year  he  struggled  manfully,  with  all  the  power  that 
was  in  him,  against  the  aggressive  blandishments  of 
good  fortune,  which  continually  reinforced  the  smaller 
self  in  him,  and,  though  he  did  not  altogether  conquer 
in  the  end,  he  has  left  much  work  that  will  go  far  to 
help  others  to  conquer.  For  such  help,  and  such  help 
alone,  one  man  can  give  to  another.  He  can  point 
out  the  whither  and  the  why  of  a  religious  life,  and 
make  it  clear  that  there  is  no  ultimate  blessedness 
save  in  that  uncompromising  Titanism  which  fights 
in  the  name  of  the  inner  God  of  truth  and  love  and 
right,  —  above  all,  of  right. 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  107 


IV. 
GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER. 

By  CYRUS  A.   BAETOL,   D.  D. 

'« Words  are  good,  but  they  are  not  the  best.  The  best  is  not  to 
be  explained  by  words.  The  spirit  in  which  we  act  is  the  highest 
matter.  Action  can  be  understood  and  again  represented  by  the 
spirit  alone.  No  one  knows  what  he  is  doing  while  he  acts  aright, 
but  of  what  is  wrong  we  are  always  conscious."  —  Wilhelm  Meisters 
Indenture. 

The  authorities  of  the  Concord  School  of  Philoso- 
phy demand  of  me  to  measure  the  incommensurable, 
to  compare  a  literary  accident  with  an  intellectual 
necessity,  to  make  an  equation  of  an  event  with  an 
element.  To  group  and  paint  on  one  canvas  two 
so  imlike  characters  and  incomparable  minds  were  a 
rash  attempt,  which  yet  must  share  its  presumption 
between  the  assignors  of  such  a  trust  and  the  incom- 
petent assignee,  however  unduly  bold  the  latter  may 
be  in  handling  it,  giving  less  his  reasons  than  impres- 
sions leading  to  the  conclusion  that  the  genius  of  the 
two  foremost  German  poets  is  too  diverse  for  any 
common  scale.  Goethe's  superiority  is  not  in  degree, 
but  in  kind.  They  lie  together;  so  do  Chamouni 
and  Mont  Blanc.     Schiller  might  have  been  or  not, 


108  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

Goethe  must  have  been.  He  was  a  necessity.  He 
was  hewn  out  of  the  rock  he  proceeded  to  hew  from. 
He  re-created  the  language  his  tongue  lisped  in  the 
cradle.  He  reconstituted  the  nation  of  which  he  was 
born.  To  take  out  Goethe  were  to  take  out  Germany 
from  modern  history.  Napoleon,  who  said  he  found 
but  two  men  in  Italy,  found  but  this  one  in  Germany, 
and  bluntly  said  to  him,  "  You  are  a  man,"  as  he  said 
to  his  military  staff,  "  There  is  a  man."  But  how 
little  Napoleon  dreamed  that  the  man  he  nodded  tliis 
compliment  to  would  by  his  thinking  and  writing  so 
unite  his  divided  and  distracted  country  as  to  be  the 
prophet  of  Bismarck  and  Moltke,  and,  as  the  Jews 
fancied  of  their  Elias,  reappear  after  a  generation,  and 
in  turn  overcome  the  empire  Bonaparte  transmitted 
to  his  dynasty,  at  Sedan  and  the  gates  of  Paris,  with- 
in full  sight  of  the  conqueror's  tomb !  Goethe  was 
denounced  as  no  patriot  because  he  did  not  personally 
withstand  the  invader,  but  declared  him  too  strong 
to  resist.  He  was  blamed  that  he  did  not  seize  the 
trumpet  and  throw  away  the  harp.  He  replied,  that 
military  songs  might  be  composed  by  Korner  amid 
the  neighing  of  horses,  but  not  by  himself  sitting  in 
a  room,  "  When  I  was  in  love,  I  wrote  love-songs  ; 
why  should  I  write  songs  of  hatred  when  I  did  not 
hate  ? "  His  contribution  to  freedom  was  his  thought, 
and  every  word  from  his  pen,  though  no  summons  to 
arms.  That  in  aught  beside  the  doctrinary  devotion 
to  native  soil,  which  is  so  cheap  on  the  Danube  or  the 
Merrimack,  Schiller  surpassed  him,  does  not  appear. 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  109 

In  the  purely  intellectual  realm,  they  are  to  be  rather 
contrasted  tlian  compared.  Schiller's  poetry  is  reg- 
ular, often  magnificent  in  its  bursts ;  Goethe's  is 
inspired  from  the  universal  law  and  order,  as  much 
part  of  nature  and  human  nature  as  the  landscape  is 
of  the  world.  Schiller  has  a  fine  plot,  with  able  and 
admirable' execution.  He  produced  pieces  adapted  to 
the  stage.  He  has  more  personal  ambition  and  ingeni- 
ous contrivance  to  compass,  by  managing  the  public, 
his  literary  ends ;  knows  how  to  play  the  game,  and 
instructs  Goethe  in  it,  when  they  become  a  sort  of 
business  firm  and  a  literary  coalition  against  common 
foes ;  but  a  deeper  than  any  aim  at  popularity,  or 
wish  to  win  or  please  had  the  elder  companion,  —  too 
great  to  be  a  compeer,  above  being  rewarded,  and 
scorning  to  be  bribed  or  pre-empted ;  witness  to  the 
truth  of  things,  advocate  of  the  universe,  with  but  from 
his  Creator  a  retaining  fee.  Schiller's  verse  is  clear 
and  sweet,  and  shows  a  rare  constructive  gift.  He 
excels  in  the  speeches  he  puts  into  his  heroes'  and 
heroines'  mouths.  He  is  quotable  in  many  a  splendid 
passage.  His  printed  oratory  is  superb.  But  decla- 
mation is  for  the  hour,  and  its  platform  does  not 
abide.  Eloquence,  below  the  supreme  pattern,  cannot 
endure  the  test  of  pewter  types.  It  is  an  effervescing 
glass,  to  be  drunk  at  the  moment.  It  is  manna,  tliat 
will  not  stand  over  to  the  next  day. 

It  is  not  lack  of  reflection  that  sets  Schiller  in  the 
second  rank.  Eather  his  philosophy  entangles  and 
drowns   his  Muse.     Nor   is  a  basis   of  fact   in  his 


110  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

compositions  the  want.  He  is  historical,  as  for  a 
singer  he  is  metaphysical,  to  excess.  He  is  not  the 
warbler  that  Goethe  is,  and  has  not  the  pitch. 
Goethe  is  as  the  bobolink  that  flies  and  sings  at 
once,  its  transporting  music  subsiding  into  a  short 
chirp  as  he  lights  on  a  bough,  or  fence,  or  swaying 
stem  in  the  field.  No  master,  ancient  or  modern, 
more  triumphantly  than  Goethe  has  cloven  the  at- 
mosphere of  our  common  breath  with  lyrical  airs. 
Of  the  transcendent  bards,  Homer,  Dante,  Shake- 
speare, he  is  the  last.  Homer  —  be  it  said  without 
offence  to  the  traditional  father  of  song  —  begins  to 
look  gray  with  the  world's  longevity  and  the  an- 
tiquity of  letters  and  religious  myths.  Dante  is 
supra-mundane,  vexed  with  Italian  feuds,  provincial 
in  his  scope.  He  loves  Beatrice  and  other  divine 
creatures,  with  the  Supreme  Head  ;  but  he  hates 
many  men  and  spirits,  for  whom  he  fashions  his 
dread  converging  circles  of  the  pit.  He  makes  his 
Inferno  his  masterpiece.  He  spends  himself  on  that, 
—  and  more  on  the  Purgatory  than  the  Paradise ; 
writes  the  sentence  "No  hope,"  as  the  frontispiece 
of  hell,  and  throws  the  earth  into  eclipse  with  the 
awful  shadows  of  other  spheres.  Shakespeare  and 
Goethe  are  the  two  great  poets  for  the  modern  mind, 
for  humanity,  for  the  hour  that  is  coming  and  that 
now  is.  Goethe  posts  the  books  up  to  date ;  insists 
that  everything  shall  be  natural,  real,  and  true,  pres- 
ent to  the  faith  and  experience  of  mankind.  Milton 
treats  us  to  stately  and  sonorous  lines,  that  march  in 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  Ill 

perfect  step.  They  are  as  an  army  at  whose  even 
and  solid  tread  the  earth  trembles,  while  banners 
flaunt  and  sounds  of  drum  and  trumpet  pierce  the 
air.  But  his  manner  is  more  than  his  theme.  He 
surfeits  us  with  fabulous  celestial  doings,  fancied  dia- 
bolical rebellions,  extra-terrestrial  battles,  and  feux 
d'artijice,  pyrotechnics,  however  by  the  tragedy  they 
illustrate  made  sublime,  yet  shot  off  to  accompany  a 
theology  that  no  longer  can  fit  our  condition  or  con- 
tent our  moral  sense.  The  Satan  he  shows  issuing 
from  the  far-off  under- world  portals  for  his  travels, 
w^th  brave  equipment,  to  compass  the  ruin  of  a  dis- 
tant planet,  precursor  of  all  Alexander-like  con- 
querors, Goethe  with  a  drop  of  ink  depicts  in  the 
shape  of  a  poodle,  starting  up  in  a  study  or  a  street, 
let  in  or  out  at  the  corner  of  a  diagram,  dressed  and 
talking  like  a  gentleman,  up  to  all  the  tricks  of  trade, 
plausible  and  persuasive  as  any  huckster  or  broker, 
a  dealer  in  jewelry,  ready  to  enter  a  maiden's  cham- 
ber, captivate  a  duenna,  spur  to  a  quarrel,  and  lay 
down  on  any  counter  the  coin  for  the  price  of  a 
human  soul.  He  lives  next  door,  and  is  at  our  own 
and  our  neighbor's  service.  We  suspect  his  lodg- 
ing in  our  breast.  Ever  since  Goethe  wrote,  in  all 
lands  we  say  of  any  cunning  man-shaped  devil 
he  is  a  perfect  Mephistopheles.  Demons,  angels, 
or  mortals  Goethe  makes  familiar  spirits,  domes- 
ticates and  plants  them  on  the  earth.  Natural  or 
supernatural,  they  are  always  real ;  and  many  of 
Schiller's  characters  beside  them  are  as  stuffed  fig- 


112  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

ures  of  tradition,  or  paper  silhouettes  cut  by  meta- 
physical scissors. 

Goethe's  gold  brightens,  Schiller's  lacquer  taruislies 
and  fades,  with  use.  Why  are  the  moth  and  rust  at 
work  on  compositions  which  the  school-girls  thirty 
years  ago  were  mad  over,  Don  Carlos,  Marie  Stuart, 
the  Bobbers,  and  William  Tell,  while  Wilhelm  Meis- 
ter.  Elective  Affinities,  Hermann  and  Dorothea,  mul- 
tiply their  constituents  and  strengtlien  their  hold,  and, 
as  readers  appreciate,  are  insured  against  accident  ? 
Schiller  has  fared  better  than  Goethe  on  the  play- 
house boards ;  but  the  world  is  the  stage  on  which 
Goethe's  men  and  women  are  players  of  his  dra- 
matis personce,  the  scene  being  life,  and  society  the 
panorama  unrolled.  Goethe  knew  good  work,  and 
therefore  did  it.  He  said,  I  thought  I  should  have 
done  some  things  differently  from  Shakespeare,  but 
soon  learned  what  a  poor  sinner  I  Avas,  and  that  he 
is  Nature's  prophet :  and  Goethe  is  the  same :  Faust 
and  Hamlet  coequal  in  date,  although,  in  the  Second 
Part  of  Faust,  Helena  can  never  be  popular  even 
among  scholars. 

The  women  are  alike  good  from  the  English  and 
the  German  draughtsman,  however  honestly  either 
acquired  his  skill.  ^Margaret  and  Mignon  are  not 
copies  of  Ophelia  or  Desdemona,  and  their  colors  are 
as  fast.  Shakespeare  did  not,  perhaps  could  not  in 
his  lordly  age,  glorify  like  his  successor  a  humble 
peasant  lot.  Both  were  close  to  nature,  witnesses  . 
faithful  and  true;  and  Goethe  is  the  chief  example 


GOETUE  AND  SCHILLER.  113 

in  history  of  critical  and  creative  faculty  combined. 
Art,  he  says,  consists  not  in  making  beautiful  descrip- 
tions, but  in  describing  beautiful  things.  Without 
being  intimately  present  for  a  long  time  with  a  spe- 
cial object,  he  adds,  the  artist  cannot  succeed.  With 
Schiller  rhetoric  prevails  over  reality.  He  is  a  per- 
former whose  expression  is  sacrified  to  his  technique. 
"  The  Song  of  the  Bell  "  is  a  fine  poem  ;/  Wallenstein 
and  Thekla  are  noble  characterizations,  but  fashioned 
by  conventional  rules.  The  author  lacks  the  artless 
graces,  knows  too  much.  Goethe,  with  all  his  skill 
and  information,  obeys  the  genius  he  does  not  pre- 
tend to  understand  or  guide.  "  I  prefer,"  he  says, 
"  that  the  power  which  works  in  and  through  me 
should  be  hidden  from  me.  I  have  never  thought 
about  thought.  I  have  metaphysics  enough  to  last 
me  for  life."  Nature  to  him  is  God's  anteroom  and 
audience-chamber.  He  does  not  try  or  expect  to 
reach  the  Sovereign  Presence  by  climbing  up  some 
other  way,  or  presume  at  the  King's  shoulder  to  dic- 
tate or  suggest,  but  humbly  pores  over  his  hand- 
writing to  peruse  or  spell  it  out.  He  is  as  physical, 
as  much  of  a  naturalist,  including  the  soul,  in  his 
poetry  as  in  his  science.  When  Schiller  complains 
that  a  lecturer  had  shown  Nature  not  in  her  unity, 
but  in  specimens  and  bits,  Goethe  eagerly  expounds 
to  him  that  unity  in  the  metamorphosis  of  plants, 
each  portion  as  a  transformed  leaf.  Schiller  replies, 
that  this  is  not  an  observation  but  an  idea.  Goethe 
rejoins,  that  he  is  glad  to  have  eyes  to  behold  such 

8 


114  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

ideas  in  nature.  He  says,  "  When  I  look,  I  see  all 
there  is."  So  he  saw  the  topmost  vertebra  expanding 
into  the  skull,  and  the  seven  colors  as  mixtures  of 
lio'ht  and  shade.  Schiller  did  not  consider  that  we 
can  see,  with  eyes,  only  what  the  frauie  of  nature 
tends  to.  Newton  does  not  see  the  fall,  as  an  ap- 
ple, of  the  sphere  :  Kepler  does  not  see  the  planetary 
approximations,  nor  Darwin  the  animal  evolutions  : 
they  see  indications  and  draw  conclusions  which 
the  facts  and  motions  require.  Nature  refuses  to 
be  caught  in  the  very  act.  Goethe  saw  the  live 
robe  of  God  which  the  earth-spirit  weaves ;  and 
he  held  all  the  bright  and  dark  yarn  in  some  extra 
pair  of  hands.  He  portrays  man,  the  living,  moving 
body  of  the  race ;  not,  like  our  Emerson,  the  indi- 
vidual mind  or  the  Holy  Ghost  alone.  Emerson 
spins  a  thread,  Goethe  weaves  a  web.  Emerson 
snatches  a  trumpet  from  some  angel's  grasp,  Goethe 
greets  us  with  an  orchestral  symphony.  Emerson 
fetches  the  top-stone  of  a  monument  or  pinnacle  of 
a  temple  before  the  structures  are  reared  and  ready  ; 
Goethe  builds  from  the  ground  with  vast  and  com- 
plete design.  Emerson  arrives  a  pilgrim  and  stran- 
ger after  long  sojourn  in  a  foreign  land,  angelic  visitor 
from  some  heavenly  sphere,  and,  shrewd  though  he 
be,  gets  but  half-acquainted  with  this  world;  Goe- 
the is  native  to  the  soil,  and  knows  every  earthly 
mother's  son  and  daughter  by  heart.  None  higher  in 
aim  than  Emerson,  more  a  prince  among  the  fine 
spirits  that  have  lighted  up  this  earth  with  a  celes- 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILCER:-  115 

tial  gleam:  none  more  true  to  his  call,  which  was 
not,  like  that  of  Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  to  set  forth 
this  human  membership  which  we  are.  He  is  a  solo- 
ist at  the  concert,  his  performance  slenderly  related 
to  the  choir.  He  imperfectly  appreciates  the  func- 
tions of  church  or  state.  He  gazes  at  Goethe  as  an 
antelope,  gazelle,  or  camelopard  might  at  Behemoth 
or  the  sreat  Pan.  He  is  the  zenith  which  from  a 
scornful  altitude  surveyed  the  nadir  and  the  poles. 
Yet  Emerson  draws  from  Goethe. 

"  And  e'en  the  grass  shall  plot  and  plan 
What  it  will  do  when  it  is  man, " 

comes  after  Goethe's  encouragement  to  the  Proteus 
Delphis  in  "  Helena,"  — 

"  Through  myriad  forms  of  being  wending, 
To  be  a  man  in  time  thou 'It  rise." 

So  hard  it  is  to  be  original.  The  last  shall  be  first 
and*  the  first  last.  Emerson  and  Darwin  are  antici- 
pated, exceeded,  and  included  by  Goethe.  The  most 
generous  of  admirers,  Emerson  notes  the  merits  of  his 
senior  contemporary  without  justice  to  his  supreme 
human  representative  claim. 

"Faust,"  the  crowning  product  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  is  to  his  dainty  mind  a  disagreeable  book,  as 
if  a  poem,  epic  or  dramatic,  could  be  made  of  the  leav- 
ings when  all  the  sad  and  dark  passages  of  the  world- 
tale  should  have  been  erased;  the  critic  not  seeing 
that  it  is  only  against  the  facts  or  materials  of  the 
tragedy  that  his  objection  holds.     He  complains  that 


116  LIFE   AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

Goethe  neither  surrenders  himself  to  the  torrent  of 
inspiration  nor  devotes  himself  to  the  absolute  truth  ; 
cares  for  art  for  the  sake  of  culture,  and  is  not  even 
an  artist  because  not  incorporating  all  the  matter 
of  his  pages  in  artistic  form ;  the  censure  from  other 
quarters  being  that  Goethe  is  artist  too  much  with 
determination  of  blood  to  the  head  at  the  cost  of  the 
heart.  Puritan  clashes  with  cosmopolitan.  Emerson 
writes  to  Carlyle,  "  Goethe  can  never  be  dear  to  me  " ; 
and,  in  his  "  Eepresentative  Men,"  that  he  can  never 
be  dear  to  mankind.  Sterling  wrote  to  Carlyle  that 
Goethe  is  not  to  be  loved,  and  Carlyle  cries  back, 
"  Who  has  the  right  to  love  him  ? "  "  Goethe  was  a 
wicked  man,"  exclaimed  a  lady  lecturer ;  and  a  bad  man 
he  was  long  before  pronounced  to  be  by  a  Cambridge 
orator,  who  describes  him  as  inwardly  felicitating  him- 
self on  the  rich  accession  to  his  artistic  domain  from 
discreditably  precious  experiences,  and  deriving  mate- 
rial for  poetry  from  sufferings  wantonly  caused.  That 
moral  worth  is  essential  to  intellectual  success  was  the 
orator's  point,  which  he  declared  he  would  not  give 
up  for  a  hundred  Goethes,  —  as  if  the  earth  had  not 
labored  in  bringing  forth  one ;  and  that  it  was  too 
soon  to  conclude  that  Goethe  as  a  man  of  letters  does 
succeed ;  that  the  love  and  enthusiasm  of  the  German 
heart  ran  to  Schiller,  the  true,  earnest,  whole-souled 
man  with  his  great,  glowing,  outpoured  heart.  Forty- 
one  years  are  gone  since  this  conscientious  prevision, 
and  time  as  yet  gives  no  backing  to  the  seer,  who  did 
not  foresee.     Time  cannot  be  so  cheaply  subsidized 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  117 

and  suborned.     Time  seems  to  be  of  the  opinion,  that 
a  man  may  have  faults  or  defects,  or  commit  immo- 
ralities, as  Moses  and  David  and  Solomon  did,  and  as 
in  some  way  and  measure  all  men,  the  harsh  judges 
included,  do  or  may  have  done,  and  yet  not  be  reck- 
oned as  refuse  for  the  dunghill;  but  repent  and  be 
pardoned,  even  be  exalted,  like    him  who  slew  the 
Egyptian  in  a  passion,  or  like  the  Hebrew  Psalmist, 
or  his  son,  with  his  bitter-sweet  proverbs  for  part  of 
the  canon ;  or  like  St.  Augustine,  head  father  of  tlie 
Church,  when  a  boy ;  or,  to  take  illustrations  from  our 
own  day,  like  some  platform  speaker,  Christian  profes- 
sor, or  occupant  of  a  presidential  chair.     The  condon- 
ings  of  history  make  a  strange  chapter  when  mixed 
with  the  decrees  of  the  moral  sense.     To  say  that 
Goethe  gloated  over  the  sin,  while  he  gathered  up  the 
lesson,  is  a  calumny.     Sin  would   play  all  of  us  a 
worse  trick  than  it  does,  if  we  learned  nothing  from  it. 
Shall  we  revile  Peter  for  turning  with  beautiful  petri- 
faction his  inconsistencies  into  a  rock,  or   Paul  for 
making  fuel  of  his  persecutions  to  kindle  his  devotions 
to  super-heat?     When  we  assail  David  for  his  fifty- 
first  penitential  Psalm,  issue  of  his  adultery,  it  will  be 
in  season  to  attack  Goethe  for  the  pathetic  strains  that 
accompany  or  follow  his  unhappy  slips  of  like  sort. 
Stones  will  not  be  so  plenty  and  at  hand  if  the  iimo- 
cent,  who  are  never  known  to  throw  them,  are  com- 
missioned to  cast  the  first.     "  That,"  said  the  visitor, 
pointing  to  a  picture  on  the  wall,  "  is  a  St.  Cecilia." 
"No,"   replied   the   lady,   "a   Magdalen."      "Pardon 


118  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

me,  my  eyes  are  so  poor,"  he  answered,  "  I  cannot 
tell  a  sinner  from  a  saint."  An  ill  opinion  of  human 
virtue  exaggerates,  both  in  individuals  and  the  com- 
munity, the  sum  of  sexual  vice,  till  a  malaria  of  sus- 
picion confounds  the  general  virtue,  and  covers  like  a 
baleful  fog  the  laud.  Goethe,  born  with  immense 
susceptibility,  bred  in  an  atmosphere  which  French 
license  and  German  sentiment  mixed  for  his  breath, 
and  becoming  like  a  city  set  on  a  hill,  erred  too  often 
and  conspicuously  to  be  hid.  History  must  mark  him, 
not  as  treacherous  or  insincere  in  his  affections,  but 
volatile,  inconstant,  lacking  that  consecration  whose 
mutuality  between  two  persons,  man  and  woman,  is 
the  right,  duty,  and  glory  of  both.  But  it  demoralizes 
society  to  decide  that  the  unmarried  may  not  have 
friendships  as  pure  as  they  are  dear. 

Great  men  are  too  scarce  to  be  thrown  away,  even 
for  grievous  faults.  Consult  proportion  in  what  you 
judge.  Measure  the  mountain,  as  well  as  the  rift  in 
its  side.  We  accept  vast  benefits  from  and  for  them 
own  our  debt  to  Webster,  Hamilton,  as  factors  and 
benefactors  ;  and  to  Samuel  Johnson,  mournfully  con- 
fessing, "Ah!  T  have  not  lived  as  I  ought."  Schiller's 
record  appears  to  be  free  from  this  particular  blot,  to 
which,  by  his  cleaner  or  less  passionate  constitution, 
he  was  not  exposed.  But  how  his  loyal  wife  be- 
friended Goethe,  and  promoted  confidence  in  the  two 
identified  homes !  But  Schiller's  early  pen  left  some 
stains  ;  and  he  had  sins,  of  as  deep  a  dye  as  his 
friend's,   in  the  jealousy   which    made    him    say    of 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  119 

Goethe,  "This  man  stands  in  my  way";  in  the  am- 
bition which  proposed  his  own  honor  for  his  object, 
as  well  as,  if  not  more  than,  the  common  good,  and 
the  indirection  with  which  he  sometimes  brought  his 
purposes  to  pass,  —  in  contrast  with  Goethe's  sim- 
plicity, royal  generosity,  and  the  modesty  with  which 
he  accepted  criticism  of  his  own  writings  for  more 
than-  it  was  worth.  His  ability  at  such  a  multiple 
distribution  as  he  made  of  his  own  heart  is  a  flaw- 
The  two  parts  of  God's  image  whose  sundering  is 
sex  tend,  run,  fly  together,  and  collisions  occur.  The 
ever-womanly  draweth  us  on  ;  the  ever-manly  too, 
what  woman  will  not  add?  But  desertion  of  another, 
even  for  the  sake  of  one's  own  supposed  destiny,  is 
a  crime ;  and  doubtless  there  are  eyes  fine  enough  to 
see  where  Goethe's  work  suffered  for  his  mistake. 

Among  the  appreciators  of  Goethe,  why  such 
warmth  in  Thomas  Carlyle,  a  man  so  pure,  so  slow  to 
praise  and  quick  to  blame  ?  Was  it  that  he  found  in 
Goethe,  for  once,  no  sham,  but  a  veracity  without  par- 
allel in  the  literary  guild,  —  words  like  those  nails  in 
the  Bible  by  the  Master  of  assemblies  fixed,  fastened, 
driven  in  a  sure  place,  written  on  an  iron  leaf,  —  and 
an  originality  unmatched  in  this  age  ?  We  can  find 
a  touch  of  Carlyle  and  of  Emerson  in  Wordsworth,  in 
Thomas  Browne,  and  in  Montaigne.  But,  says  Dr. 
Hedge,  Goethe  lighted  his  torch  at  the  sun.  Perhaps 
Carlyle,  resembling  Goethe  in  his  truthful  testimony, 
admired  also  what  he  wanted  himself,  and  never  quite 
attained,  the  serenity  of  the  great  author,  as  if  he  sat 


120  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

in  the  star  Sirius  with  a  pen  reaching  to  the  eartli,  — 
from  the  subjects  he  was  identified  with  so  wondrously 
remote !  But  he  was  wicked  ?  No,  such  an  altitude 
as  his  is  impossible  for  a  bad  man !  Satan,  the  Devil 
or  evil  one,  is  restless,  goeth  up  and  down,  seeking 
whom  he  may  devour.  Says  Miss  Shepherd,  author 
of  "  Counterparts,"  —  "  Show  me  poetry  of  a  bad  man, 
and  I  will  show  you  wherein  it  is  not  poetry."  •  Tlie 
impartial,  disinterested  justice  with  which  such  au- 
thors as  Shakespeare  and  Goethe  enter  into  the  char- 
acters they  depict,  or  without  comment  impale,  like 
Izaak  Walton  loving  the  bait  he  fished  with,  is 
goodness. 

We  are  preached  to  or  at  by  essayists,  as  well  as 
from  the  pulpit ;  but  open  the  books  of  these  poets, 
and  we  are  in  the  midst  of  people,  a  swarm  of  our 
fellows,  as  kindly  dealt  with  as  by  Him  that  made 
them,  as  equitably  treated  as  all  will  be  at  the  last 
bar  on  the  judgment-day.  Inordinate  passion  turns 
to  poison  with  the  ingredient  of  a  lie.  0  political 
or  clerical  fornicator,  beware  of  that !  A  Cato  or 
Brutus,  stern  patriot,  severe  moralist,  professed  phi- 
lanthropist, Goethe  is  not.  "  As  for  wind  and  sun, 
and  the  good  of  the  human  race,  let  Heaven  take 
care  of  them  to-day  as  it  did  yesterday."  But  good 
he  pre-eminently  is.  His  heart,  said  Jung  Stilling, 
which  few  knew,  was  as  great  as  his  head,  which  all 
knew  ;  and  his  wisdom  born  of  the  lieart  amazes  us 
as  a  new  Book  of  Proverbs.  His  "Ajjothegms"  was 
the  one  volume  Emerson  took  on  his  journey.    When 


GOETHE  AND  SCniLLER.  '       121 

the  creation  was  finished,  God  said,  It  is  all  good. 
So  says  Goethe.  He  accepts  the  situation,  and  he  is 
master  of  it.  He  does  not  quarrel  with  the  world, 
that  sits  at  his  easel,  more  than  Stuart  or  Eeynolds 
with  their  models.  He  is  an  optimist,  and  would  let 
all  people  into  heaven,  with  the  goats  not  on  the 
left  hand.  .  Had  he  not  thought  it  worth  his  while  to 
draw,  as  the  Lord  did  to  shape,  goat  or  sheep?  He 
delights  in  Spinoza's  pantheism.  He  is  not  a  re- 
former. He  fancies  things  and  folks  to-morrow  will 
be  very  much  as  to-day.  He  copies  for  approval 
into  his  journal  the  Latin  motto  of  Thraseas,  "  Who 
hates  vice  hates  mankind,"  and  subjoins  a  maxim  of 
his  own.  Our  vices  and  our  virtues  grow  from  one 
and  the  same  root.  Whatever  else  he  may  or  may 
not  be,  he  is  not  malignant.  He  comprehends,  and 
does  not  exclude.  Schiller  is  vehement  and  diplo- 
matic. Herder  is  morose.  Goethe  may  be  stiff,  but 
never  loses  his  grand  benign  balance,  only  exceptions 
to  his  theory  of  colors  irritated  him  a  little  in  his  old 
age.  Let  "The  Sorrows  of  Werther"  and  "Gotz  of 
Berlichingen  "  attest  that  his  calmness,  what  carpers 
call  coldness,  was  acquired !  Vesuvius  has  overflowed, 
with  whatever  vineyards  the  sleeping  volcano  may 
clothe  its  sides.  Only  inward  harmony  could  beget 
songs  classic  as  Pindar  and  simple  as  Burns,  —  some 
dear  image  being  with  him  in  the  fairest  spot. 

"  Dearest  Lili,  if  I  did  not  love  thee, 
How  transporting  were  a  scene  like  this  ! 
Yet  my  Lili,  if  I  did  not  love  thee, 
What  were  any  bliss  ? 


122  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

"  Alas  !  the  gentle  bloom  of  spring  no  longer 
Cheereth  my  poor  heart ; 
There  is  only  spring  and  love  and  nature, 
Angel,  where  thou  art." 

Some  other  heart  was  always  in  his  breast,  though 
those  looking  on  knew  it  not,  and  from  his  love 
for  the  prototype  of  Ottilie  he  bears  the  arrow  long 
sticking:  in  his  own  heart.  Whatever  the  trausgres- 
siona  in  whose  shame  the  so-called  victims,  whose 
victim  he  was,  partake,  and  however  excelled  he  was 
by  Schiller  in  the  home-integrity,  which  is  a  corner- 
stone of  the  commonwealth,  Goethe's  temper  was 
goodness  to  every  creature  that  breathes,  from  an 
instinctive  piety  with  which  the  child  of  seven 
rears  an  altar  to  the  Deity,  as  before  he  is  eight  he 
writes  German,  French,  Italian,  Latin,  and  Greek. 
His  disgust  is  loud  at  the  horrible  tapestry,  from  the 
history  of  Jason,  Medea,  and  Creusa,  with  which,  as 
an  unwilling  portent  of  her  fate,  the  French  artists 
salute  the  young  queen,  on  her  way  to  Paris,  Marie 
Antoinette.  He  is  no  coward.  To  cure  himself  of 
sensitiveness  to  painful  sights  and  of  a  tendency  to 
giddiness,  he  ascends  the  dizzy  cathedral-top,  wit- 
nesses hideous  surgical  operations,  as  Dickens  got 
over  sea-sickness  by  a  score  of  resolute  crossings  of 
the  British  Channel.  He  ploughs  on  foot  through  the 
snows  to  the  Furca,  and  seeks  the  smell  of  powder, 
feels  the  cannon  fever  mid  flying  balls  on  the  battle- 
field. To  call  him  dissolute  is  not  to  describe  such  a 
man.     He  is  religious,  believes  in  God  and  immor- 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  123 

tality,  reveres  the  Bible,  bows  before  Christ,  refuses, 
chief  scientific  genius  as  he  was  of  his  time,  to  admit 
a  scientific  basis  for  religion,  it  being  its  own  ;  a  nat- 
uralist, he  sees  in  nature  more  than  can  be  reduced  to 
natural  laws,  even  an  infinite  beauty  and  unspeakable 
charm.  He  repents  where  he  has  been  misled,  and,  in 
"  Elective  Affinities,"  deposits  sad  experiences,  he  says, 
as  in  a  burial-urn.  He  judges  that  the  sentiment  of 
faith  concerns  us  more  than  the  object  on  which  it  is 
fixed. 

In  his  account  of  Fraulein  von  Klettenberg,  he 
gives  us  a  record  of  private  worship  equalled  no- 
where out  of  Holy  Writ,  although  he  imagines  some- 
what self-conscious  in  such  homage  as  she  renders ; 
and  he  playfully  assures  her  he  considers  the  Deity 
in  arrears  with  him,  and  is  called  a  foolish  fellow 
for  his  presumption  by  her  purified  lips.  In  all 
his  immersion  in  the  Kantian  philosophy,  in  which 
Goethe  also  wades  and  dredges,  Schiller  discovers  no 
more  of  the  substance  of  God  than  was  revealed  to 
the  flitting  fancy  of  his  envied  rival  unawares,  who 
found  the  proof  of  Heaven,  a  belief  which  was  its 
own  evidence,  in  the  action  of  his  soul.  If  he  was 
for  a  while  the  pleasing  sinner  he  calls  Philina,  he 
was  no  sour  saint.  He  puts  into  Faust's  mouth  a 
doxology,  ascription  to  the  Most  High  which  no 
hymn-book  can  vie  with,  expounds  a  threefold 
reverence  in  a  way  to  instruct  every  theologist;  and, 
making  prayer  justify  itself,  dispenses  beforehand 
with  Mr.   Tyndall's   hospital-gauge.      Do   the  next 


124  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

duty,  renounce,  worship  sorrow,  are  his  lessons.  The 
priests  cannot  keep  his  offerings  out  of  their  contri- 
bution-box, however  they  bluster  their  condemnation 
on  his  head  as  they  carry  it  round.  His  mental 
hospitality  in  cordially  accepting,  after  Schiller's 
half-honest  aversion  and  backbiting  coquetry  and  his 
own  Olympian  vows,  the  inferior  man  of  letters  to 
his  friendly  glowing  embrace,  to  receive  from  him  not 
very  important  encouragement  and  advice,  is  dem- 
onstration of  radical  magnanimity.  When  Schiller, 
ten  years  his  junior,  is  sick,  he  is  troubled,  anxiously 
inquires,  divines  from  the  silence  of  those  around 
him  that  the  end  has  come,  says  Schiller  is  dead, 
covers  his  face  with  his  hands,  and  laments  an  irre- 
parable loss.  In  the  delirium  preceding  his  own  death 
he  sees  a  bit  of  paper  on  the  floor,  and  asks  why  so 
careless  as  to  leave  Schiller's  letters  in  that  fashion 
lying  round  loose,  —  his  affection,  as  the  living  wave 
ebbed  in  his  bosom,  showing  its  unsounded  depth. 

In  England  the  man  who  has  rated  Schiller  high- 
est and  studied  Goethe  most  is  Thomas  Carlyle.  It  is 
like  the  praise  of  Sir  Hubert  Stanley  when  he  makes 
Goethe  of  modern  literature  the  head.  Schiller  was 
but  the  Mercury  to  that  Jupiter,  with  whom  Carlyle 
might  be  in  some  sense  and  measure  a  competitor 
had  he  become  as  peaceful  and  sunny  as  he  was 
strong ;  could  he  have  spoken  the  Yea  of  liis  own 
"  Sartor  Eesartus  "  and  left  behind  him  the  everlasting 
No,  to  learn  the  power  of  ideas  as  well  as  of  will, 
and  to  perceive  how  mighty  Goethe  was,  not  in  tak- 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  126 

ing  a  partisan  side  in  whatever  affair  was  in  question, 
but  in  thinking  it  all  out  and  with  glad  content;  not 
wishing  to  be  brilliant,  doing  justice  in  his  portraits 
to  things  and  persons  the  most  dull  and  common- 
place, but  genuine  in  every  way,  because  he  dis- 
cerned how  the  repetition  of  forms  and  phrases  ossifies 
the  organs  of  intelligence.  Goethe  was  a  son  of  the 
morning ;  he  wrought  as  the  elements,  he  changed 
the  climate  and  emancipated  the  human  mind.  Car- 
lyle  wielded  the  hammer  of  Vulcan,  struck  Cyclo- 
pean blows,  and  heated,  to  fashion  anew  and  better, 
the  old  metal  of  the  earth's  annals.  Standing  round 
the  strong  and  sweating  craftsman,  we  feel  like  boys 
in  whose  faces  fly  the  sparks  and  cinders  from  the 
blacksmith's  forge.  But,  as  he  looks  up,  his  honor 
for  the  unfallen  German  Lucifer  is  not  less  trust- 
worthy by  reason  of  the  limits  of  his  own  position. 
He  especially  delights  in  the  easy  and  airy  style  in 
which  by  his  superior  the  miracle  is  done.  But  let 
me  give  specimens,  such  as  translation  of  German 
into  English  allows.  Take  Miguon's  death-song,  in 
her  gala  attire,  as  she  declines  to  be  undressed. 

"  Such  let  me  seem  till  such  I  be,  — 
Take  not  my  snow-white  dress  away  ! 
Soon  from  this  dusk  of  earth  I  flee 
Up  to  the  glittering  lands  of  day. 

*'  There  first  a  little  space  I  rest, 
Then  wake  so  glad  to  scenes  so  kind  ; 
In  earthly  robes  no  longer  drest, 
This  band,  this  girdle,  left  behind. 


126  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

"  And  those  calm  shining  sons  of  morn, 
They  ask  not  who  is  maid  or  boy; 
No  robe,  no  gannents,  there  are  worn, 
Our  body  pure  from  sin's  alloy. 

"  Through  little  life  not  much  I  toiled, 
Yet  anguish  long  this  heart  has  wrung  ; 
Untimely  woe  my  blossom  spoiled, 
Make  me  again  forever  young." 

Lyncens,  charged  by  Faust  with  neglect  of  warder 
duty  when  Helena  arrives,  explains  his  dereliction  :  — 

"  Let  me  kneel  and  gaze  upon  her. 
Let  me  live  or  let  me  die. 
Pledged  to  serve  with  truth  and  honor 
The  god-given  dame  am  I. 


to" 


*'  "Watching  for  the  morning,  gazing 
Eastward  for  its  rising,  lo  I 
In  the  south,  my  vision  dazing. 
Rose  the  sun,  a  wondrous  show. 

*' Neither  earth  nor  heaven -ward  turning, 
Depth  nor  height  my  vision  drew; 
Thitherward  I  gazed,  still  yearning 
Her  the  peerless  one  to  view. 

*'  Eyesight  keen  to  me  is  granted. 
Like  to  lynx  on  highest  tree  ; 
From  the  dream  which  me  enchanted 
Hard  I  strnggletl  to  be  free. 

*'  Could  I  the  delusion  banish  ? 
Turret,  tower,  barred  gateway,  see  ! 
V<apors  rise  and  vapors  vanish,  — • 
Forward  steps  this  deity. 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  127 

•'  Eye  and  heart  to  her  I  tender, 
I  inhale  her  gentle  light  ; 
Blinding  all,  such  beauty's  splendor 
Blinded  my  poor  senses  quite. 

**  I  forgot  the  warder's  duty, 
I  forgot  the  entrusted  horn  ; 
Threaten  to  destroy  me,  —  Beavity 
Tameth  anger,  tameth  scorn." 

Let  me  add  the  "  Chorus  of  Nymphs  "  :  — 

"  He  draweth  near  ! 

In  mighty  Pan 

The  all  we  scan 

Of  this  world-sphere. 
All  ye  of  gayest  mood  advance, 
And  him  surround  in  sportive  dance. 
For,  since  he  earnest  is  and  kind, 
Joy  everywhere  he  fain  would  find. 
E'en  'neath  the  blue  o'erarching  sky 
He  watcheth  still  with  wakeful  eye ; 
Purling  to  him  the  brooklet  flows. 
And  zephyrs  lull  him  to  repose  ; 
And  when  he  slumbers  at  midday, 
Stii-s  not  a  leaf  upon  the  spray. 
Health-breathing  plants,  with  balsams  rare. 
Pervade  the  still  and  silent  air. 
The  nymph  no  more  gay  vigil  keeps. 
And  where  she  standeth,  there  she  sleeps. 
But  if,  at  unexpected  hour, 
His  voice  resounds  with  mighty  power. 
Like  thunder  or  the  roaring  sea. 
Then  knoweth  none  where  he  may  flee. 
Panic  the  valiant  host  assails. 
The  hero  in  the  tumult  quails. 
Then  honor  to  whom  honor  is  due. 
And  hail  to  him  who  leads  us  unto  you." 


128  LIFE  AND    GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

In  a  different  strain,  like  Tennyson  before  the  time, 
is  "  Peneios  surrounded  by  Waters  and  Nympbs  "  :  — 

"  Sedgy  whispers,  gently  flow, 
Sister  reeds,  breathe  faint  and  low; 
Willows,  lightly  rustle  ye. 
Lisp  each  trembling  poplar  tree." 

Goethe  knew  himself.  He  could  measure  himself. 
When  some  of  the  Romanticists  preferred  Tieck,  he 
said,  "  I  speak  freely,  I  did  not  make  myself;  it  is  of  no 
more  use  to  compare  Tieck  with  me  than  if  I  should 
compare  myself  with  Shakespeare."  This  latter  com- 
parison, however,  with  a  greater  nature  than  his,  some 
scholars  in  Germany  make ;  and  consider  Faust  a 
more  commanding  peak  to  observe  human  life  from 
than  Lear,  Othello,  or  Macbeth. 

Goethe,  like  Thackeray  and  Victor  Hugo,  tried 
sketching  as  well  as  writing,  as  Michael  Angelo  was 
painter,  sculptor,  architect,  and  poet,  and  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  could  turn  his  hand  to  any  art,  painter, 
sculptor,  architect,  engineer.  But  there  is  a  law 
against  coveting.  Eare  is  success  in  more  than  one 
calling.  The  Apostle  Paul  would  not  go  beyond  his 
own  into  another  man's  line  of  things.  God  and 
Nature  grudge  us  any  perfection.  It  might  be  too 
much  for  hope  of  progress  without  end  were  there  a 
man  who  did  not  lack,  and  need  eternity  to  mend. 

Schiller  is  the  poet  of  a  section  and  season ;  Goe- 
the, of  ages  and  the  world.  In  personal  relations, 
not  intellectual  merits,  they  meet.  The  putting  their 
names  together  in  a  lecture,  for  one  theme,  reminds 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  129 

me  of  the  Soothsayer's  talk  with  Antony  in  Shake- 
speare's play. 

"  Ant.     Say  to  me, 
Whose  fortunes  shall  rise  higher,  Cajsar's  or  mine  ? 

"  Sooth.     Csesar's. 
Therefore,  0  Antony,  stay  not  by  his  side. 
Thy  demon,  tliat  's  thy  spirit  which  keeps  thee,  is 
Noble-,  courageous,  high,  unmatchable, 
Where  Cssar's  is  not ;  but  near  him  thy  angel 
Becomes  afeared  as  being  o'erpowered;  therefore 
Make  space  enough  between  you." 

I  see  Schiller  in  his  customary  pacing  about  in  his 
composing-room  through  the  night,  rousing  himself  to 
his  stint  with  some  stirring  of  exercise  as  he  spouts 
a  passage  and  resorts  from  time  to  time  to  the  stim- 
ulating draughts  at  his  side ;  and  I  find  cause  for 
whatever  may  be  strained  or  unnatural  in  the  literary 
result.  Goethe  is  started  from  healthy  slumber  by 
the  Musagetes,  which  he  celebrates,  the  flies  that  bring 
the  Muse  as  they  buzz  and  sting.  Schiller  thunders 
and  lightens,  Goethe  brings  music  and  light.  Michael 
in  the  "  Prologue  in  Heaven  "  describes  the  swift  de- 
structive storms,  and  adds,  as   if  to  hint  Goethe's 

genius, 

"  But,  Lord,  thy  messengers  revere 
The  mild  procession  of  thy  day." 

If  they  think  not,  Landor  tells  us,  the  gods  stride  and 
thunder  in  vain.  "We  have  declaimers  and  decorators 
enough  !  Goethe  is  a  continental  upheaver,  a  world- 
force  ;  not  by  reason  of  his  knowledge  alone ;  but,  to 
adopt  Horatio  Greenough's  title  for  one  of  his  marbles, 

9 


130  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

by  the  genius  of  love.  Supreme  in  self-love  he  has 
been  called.  A  man  working  so  hard  for  near  fourscore 
years,  he  felt  entitled  to  another  body.  Is  the  Creator 
selfish,  living  in  what  he  creates,  losing  himself  in  his 
works,  making  the  smallest  creature  large  enough  to 
eclipse  Himself,  wearing  a  veil  which  he  cannot,  like 
Moses,  put  off,  —  making  all  nature  glow  with  the 
presence  no  burning  bush  can  bound,  and  conscious 
only  in  his  children's  souls  ?  I  stand  with  some 
awe  before  the  likeness  realized  by  a  human  author 
with  the  Divine,  when  I  see  that  he  exists,  as  no 
egoist  can,  in  Ms  offspring,  and  that  the  least  and 
lowliest  of  them  is  as  dear  to  him  as  any  duke  or 
pope. 

Ideality  is  neighbor  to  Benevolence  on  the  phreno- 
logical chart.  So  we  speak  of  the  good  Homer,  be- 
cause by  a  sympathetic  imagination  he  gives  all  his 
gods  and  men,  goddesses  and  women,  a  fair  chance, 
which  from  poets  alone  the  latter  as  yet  have  had ; 
and  from  no  poet  more  than  Goethe,  not  better  even 
from  Shakespeare.  Witli  what  just  spacing  his  pen- 
cil draws !  We  have  a  sense  of  room  in  all  his 
work,  as  when  we  read  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  of  the 
succession  of  days  and  dividing  of  the  firmament,  — 
and  what  an  observer  he  is  of  the  sphere  he  projects, 
never  getting  himself  into  his  own  object-glass  as  a 
mote  or  blur!  Yet  he  surveyed  himself  apart  as  a 
natural  curiosity.  The  guests  are  many,  the  entertain- 
ment great,  the  host  unseen;  and  the  keeper  of  this 
vast  inn  for  the  weary  foot-sore  humanity  of  yet  to 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  131 

be  reckoned  generations  is  not  evil,  but  good ;  but  of 
being  a  perfect  model  of  righteousness  he  comes  short. 
We  have  heard  much  of  what  is  called  the  artistic 
temperament  as  explaining,  if  not  excusing,  fretful- 
ness  and  self-indulgence  as  besetting  sins.  Char- 
lotte Cushman  said  to  me,  in  palliation  of  an  artist's 
errors,  "  Artists  do  not  take  the  moral  point  of 
view."  But  certainly  she  did.  Washington  Allston 
needed  no  cloak  of  charity.  We  read  no  list  of  ex- 
ceptions for  bards  or  actors  in  the  law  from  Sinai,  or 
the  larger  code  of  good  news.  The  moral  constitution 
cannot  be  nullified.  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons. 
Gifts  enhance  obligations. 

Goethe  is  one  of  the  magi  or  wise  men.  He  says, 
only  by  knowing  others  can  one  know  himself  But 
only  by  loving  others  as  he  did,  can  we  know  them. 
The  best  knowledge  goes  with  loyal  love.  Cover  him, 
as  Othello  begged  of  Emilia,  Gratiano,  Lodovico,  and 
Cassio  to  be  protected ! 

"  Speak  of  me  as  I  am  ;  nothing  extenuate, 
Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice  :  then  must  you  speak 
Of  one  that  loved  not  wisely  but  too  well." 

Must  we  not  say  not  well  enough  ?  Could  Johann 
Wolfgang  Goethe,  the  youth,  have  cast  his  own  horo- 
scope, or  could  he  have  known  to  what  a  Brocken  of 
witch  and  will-o'-the-wisp  certain  paths  would  lead, 
and  could  he  have  seen  his  own  image  magnified  on 
the  screen  of  time,  he  might  not  have  had  always  the 
same  choice  of  things  on  which,  in  his  demeanor,  the 
light  should  fall. 


132  LIFE  AND  GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

In  his  drama  or  broad  farce  of  "  Mitschuldigen,"  the 
Fellow  Culprits,  all  sinners  in  divers  ways,  of  whom 
was  he  thinking  for  his  characters  hut  the  race  of 
mankind,  of  us  all  who  pass  sentence  on  him  ?  Says 
Lear  to  Gloster,  "  Change  places,  and,  handy  dandy, 
which  is  the  justice,  which  is  the  thief  ? " 

"  Compound  for  sins  we  are  inclined  to, 
By  damning  those  we  have  no  mind  to." 

The  just  disclosed  letters  of  Goethe  are  said  to  pre- 
sent his  social  loyalty  in  a  more  favorable  light.  On 
the  sliding-scale  of  iniquity  we  can  never  for  indi- 
viduals anticipate  the  ultimate  decisions.  A  certain 
act,  word,  spirit,  we  may  condemn  :  the  actor,  speaker, 
person,  we  dare  not  doom.  As  the  poet  Burns  tells 
us,  we  can  know  what  is  done,  not  how  much  is 
resisted. 

Goethe  and  Schiller :  yes,  but  Goethe  has  Schiller 
in  tow.  The  association  is  not  intrinsic,  but  acci- 
dental. Schiller  is  behind  Goethe,  not  as  one  of  two 
racers,  runners,  or  regatta  yachts ;  he  is  inferior  in 
kind,  as  a  ruby  is  to  a  diamond,  or  a  garnet  to  a  pearl. 
Schiller  moulds,  Goethe  makes.  Schiller  composes, 
Goethe  crystallizes.  Goethe  is  a  projectile  like  a 
planet,  Schiller  a  spent  ball,  or  rather  like  the  swiftly 
spinning  top  that  begins  to  waver  on  the  floor.  Goe- 
the is  one  of  a  handful  whom  God  and  Nature  hold 
for  immortal  fame;  Schiller  is  among  the  thousand 
lesser  luminaries.  Goethe  was  self-luminous  and  con- 
scious, like  Caesar  or  Bonaparte,  of  an  end  he  was 
born  for;  Schiller  was  brilliant,  adventurous,  and  con- 


GOETHE  AND  SCHILLER.  133 

trived  to  carry  his  points.  Goethe  had  the  poise  as 
well  as  brightness  of  the  sun,  Schiller  shone  more  by 
reflected  light.  Goethe  was  a  reporter  or  private 
secretary  of  the  King,  and  without  an  intention  utters 
no  word.  He  is  the  granite,  Schiller  the  secondary, 
yielding,  friable  trap-rock. 

When  Daniel  Webster  was  urged  to  make  a  special 
effort,  he  said,  "  I  will  not  strain  myself  to  kill  a  fly ; 
I  reason  not  from  worlds  to  atoms,  but  from  atoms  to 
worlds."  The  mark  of  greatness  is  ease,  because  then 
not  the  man,  but  the  supreme  power  in  him,  is  at 
work.  The  best  work  is  unconscious,  as  the  shell- 
fish carves  and  paints  its  house.  It  is  the  Divine 
Wisdom  rather  than  energy  that  Goethe  represents : 
so  there  is  less  grandeur  of  motion  and  of  rising  to 
the  sublimer  heights  than  in  Shakespeare's  Muse. 
He  is,  in  the  way  of  rushing  strength,  outstripped  by 
Homer  and  Dante  too.  Yet  his  like  their  scripture 
bears  being  translated  into  every  tongue.  He  sees, 
and  helps  us  to  see,  more  than  he  stirs  and  inspires. 
But  his  name  seems  chosen  to  announce  his  nature, 
and  somewhat  of  the  Deity  is  revealed  when  his 
instrument  is  handled  and  played.  His  eyes  shed 
serene  light  over  all.  His  works  are  an  illustrated 
edition  of  the  world. 

Schiller  is  one  of  the  great  poets  below  the  first 
rank.  Put  with  Goethe,  he  is  like  some  hill  fair  and 
noble  by  itself,  but  dwarfed  by  the  neighboring  height 
by  which  it  is  overtopped.  As  a  singer,  even  by  Heine 
he  is  surpassed.     He  is  of  a  youthful  quality,  which 


134  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

recommends  him  to  young  Germany  and  America 
more  than  to  the  old  in  either  land ;  and  I  am  con- 
tent that  youth  should,  if  it  please,  put  what  it  may 
consider  as  any  detraction  from  him  to  the  score  of 
the  prejudice  of  age.  Schiller  is  ardent :  with  a  tran- 
quil fervor,  Goethe  is  warm,  but  instructive  above  all. 
If  I  may  use  the  figure,  drawn  perhaps  from  a  grape- 
laden  wain, "  his  paths  drop  fatness."  His  pithy  say- 
ings are  not  protruded  with  any  conscious  superiority, 
but  fall  without  conceit  and  almost  unawares  by  the 
way,  in  the  large  handling  of  his  themes.  Accused  of 
egoism,  as  an  author  he  is  eminently  free  from  that 
fault,  which  clings  rather  to  writers  of  the  oracular, 
transcendental,  or  radical  school.  The  prophet  or 
renewer  of  the  time  and  the  race  must,  however  inno- 
cently, yet  be  loftily  sensible  of  his  momentary  mis- 
sion, as  he  towers  an  object  of  attack  from  the  world 
he  assails.  But  the  dramatist,  which  such  a  man  as 
Goethe  is,  alike  in  his  verse  and  his  prose,  finds  no 
room  to  scold  or  scream  at  what  he  portrays.  He 
paints  a  Madonna,  like  Correggio,  or  a  scene  of  dicers 
and  drunkards,  after  the  coarse  style  of  some  Dutch 
artist,  with  impartial  concern.  He  leaves  sinner  and 
saint  in  the  hand  of  that  other  Author  who  creates 
or  permits  both  to  exist. 


GOETHE'S  MARC  HEN.  135 


V. 

GOETHE'S  MARCHEN. 

By   FREDERIC   H.  HEDGE,   D.  D. 

In  the  summer  of  1795,  Goethe  composed  for 
Schiller's  new  magazine,  "  Die  Horen,"  a  prose  poem 
known  in  German  literature  as  "  Das  Miirchen,"  The 
Tale;  as  if  it  were  the  only  one,  or  the  one  which 
more  than  any  other  deserves  that  appellation. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  author  himself 
claimed  this  pre-eminence  for  his  production.  The 
definite  article  must  be  taken  in  connection  with 
what  precedes  it  in  the  "  Unterhaltungen  Deutscher 
Ausfrewanderten";  it  was  that  tale  which  the  Abbe 
had  promised  for  the  evening's  entertainment  of  the 
company. 

Goethe  gave  this  essay  to  the  public  as  a  riddle 
which  would  probably  be  unintelligible  at  the  time, 
but  which  might  perhaps  find  an  interpreter  after 
many  days,  when  the  hints  contained  in  it  should  be 
verified.  Since  its  first  appearance  commentators 
have  exercised  their  ingenuity  upon  it,  perceiving  it 
to  be  allegorical,  but  until  recently  without  success. 
They  made  the  mistake  of  looking  too  far  and  too 
deep  for  the  interpretation.     Carlyle  who,  in  1832, 


136  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

published  a  translation  of  it  in  "  Fraser's  Magazine," 
and  who  pronounces  it  "  one  of  the  notablest  per- 
formances produced  for  the  last  thousand  years," 
says,  "So  much  however  I  will  stake  my  whole 
money  capital  and  literary  character  upon,  that  here 
is  a  wonderful  Emblem  of  Universal  History  set 
forth,"  etc. 

But  Goethe  was  not  the  man  to  concern  himself 
with  such  wide  generalities.  He  preferred  to  deal 
with  what  is  present  and  palpable,  and  the  inferences 
to  be  deduced  therefrom. 

Dr.  Hermann  Baumgart,  in  1875,  under  the  title, 
"Goethe's  Miirchen,  ein  politisch-nationales  Glau- 
bens-bekenntniss  des  Dichter's,"  wrote  a  commentary 
on  "  The  Tale,"  which  gives  what  is  probably  the  true 
explanation.  If  it  does  not  solve  every  difficulty, 
it  solves  more  difficulties  and  throws  more  light 
on  the  poem  than  any  previous  interpretation  had 
done.  I  follow  his  lead  in  the  exposition  which  I 
now  offer. 

"  The  Tale  "  is  a  prophetic  vision  of  the  destinies 
of  Germany,  an  allegorical  foreshowing  at  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century  of  what  Germany  was  yet  to 
become,  and  has  in  great  part  already  become.  A 
position  is  predicted  for  her  like  that  which  she 
occupied  from  the  time  of  Charles  the  Great  to  the 
time  of  Charles  V.,  a  period  during  which  the  Holy 
Eoman  Empire  of  Germany  was  the  leading  secular 
power  in  Western  Europe. 


GOETHE'S  MARCHEN.  137 

That  time  had  gone  by.  From  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century  until  near  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth, Germany  declined,  and  at  the  date  of  this 
writing  (1795)  had  nearly  reached  lier  darkest  day. 
Disintegrated,  torn  by  conflicting  interests,  pecked 
by  petty  rival  princes,  despairing  of  her  own  future, 
it  seemed  impossible  that  she  should  ever  again  be- 
come a  power  among  the  nations. 

Goethe  felt  this,  he  felt  it  as  profoundly  as  any 
German  of  his  day.  He  has  been  accused  of  want  of 
patriotism,  and  incurred  much  censure  for  that  alleged 
defect.  He  certainly  did  not  manifest  his  patriotism 
by  loud  declamation.  During  the  War  of  Liberation 
he  made  no  sign.  Under  the  reign  of  the  Holy  Alli- 
ance he  did  not  side  with  the  hotheads,  compeers  of 
Sand,  who  placed  themselves  in  open  opposition  to  the 
government.  He  could  not  echo  their  cry.  They 
were  revolutionists,  he  was  an  evolutionist;  and 
they  hated  him,  they  maligned  him,  they  invented 
all  manner  of  scandal  against  him.  They  accused 
him  of  abusing  the  affections  of  women  for  literary 
purposes.  They  even  affected  to  depreciate  his  ge- 
nius. Borne  pronounced  him  a  model  of  all  that  is 
bad.  Menzel  wrote  :  "  Mark  my  words  ;  in  twenty, 
or,  at  the  longest,  thirty  years,  he  will  not  have  an 
admirer  left ;  no  one  will  read  him."  Well,  near 
sixty  years  have  elapsed,  and  here  we  are,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe,  devoting  these  summer  days 
to  the  reverent  consideration  of  the  man  and  his 
works. 


138  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

But  in  the  thirties  and  forties  of  this  century 
those  slanders  had  crossed  the  sea,  and  found  ready 
acceptance  on  this  side.  There  was  nothing  too  bad 
to  be  said  of  Goethe  ;  lie  was  publicly  held  up  for 
reprobation  and  scorn.  It  was  as  much  as  one's 
reputation  was  worth  to  speak  well  of  him. 

Goethe,  I  say,  was  charged  with  want  of  patriot- 
ism. He  was  no  screamer ;  but  he  felt  profoundly 
his  country's  woes,  and  he  characteristically  went 
into  himself  and  studied  the  situation.  The  result 
was  this  wonderful  composition,  "  Das  Marchen." 

He  perceived  that  Germany  must  die  to  be  born 
again.  She  did  die,  and  is  born  again.  He  had  the 
sagacity  to  foresee  the  dissolution  of  the  Holy  Ro- 
man Empire,  an  event  which  took  place  eleven  years 
later,  in  1806.  The  Empire  is  figured  by  the  com- 
posite statue  of  the  fourth  King  in  the  subterranean 
Temple,  which  crumbles  to  pieces  when  that  Temple, 
representing  Germany's  past,  emerges  and  stands 
above  ground  by  the  Eiver.  The  resurrection  of  the 
Temple  and  its  stand  by  the  Eiver  is  the  denoue- 
ment of  the  Tale.  And  that  signifies,  allegorically, 
the  rehabilitation  of  Germany. 

The  agents  that  are  to  bring  about  this  consumma- 
tion are  the  spread  of  liberal  ideas,  signified  by  the 
gold  of  the  Will-o'-wisps  ;  Literature,  signified  by  tlie 
Serpent;  Science,  signified  by  the  Old  Man  with 
the  Lamp ;  and  the  Church,  or  Eeligion,  signified  by 
his  wife.  The  Genius  of  Germany  is  figured  by  the 
beautiful  Youth,  the  disconsolate  Prhice,  who  dies  of 


GOETHE'S  MARC  HEN.  139 

devotion  to  the  Fair  Lily.  The  Lily  herself  repre- 
sents the  Ideal. 

Having  premised  thus  much,  I  now  proceed  to 
unfold  the  Tale,  with  accompanying  comments,  omit- 
ting, however,  some  of  the  details,  and  presenting  only 
the  organic  moments  of  the  fable. 

In  the  middle  of  a  dark  night  (the  dark  period  of 
German  history)  the  ferryman  asleep  in  his  hut  by 
the  side  of  a  swollen  river  is  awakened  by  tlie  cry  of 
parties  demanding  to  be  ferried  across  the  stream. 

Here  let  us  pause  a  moment.  The  Hut,  according 
to  Baumgart,  is  the  provisional  State  (Nothstaat), 
the  government  for  the  time  being.  The  Ferryman 
then  is  the  state  functionary  who  regulates  and 
controls  civil  intercourse.  The  Ptiver  represents  that 
intercourse,  tlie  flow  of  current  events,  swollen  by 
the  French  Revolution.  Now  a  river  is  separation 
and  communication  in  one.  The  Rhine,  which  sep- 
arates Germany  from  France,  is  also  a  medium  of 
communication  between  the  two.  What  is  it,  then, 
that  the  Elver  in  the  Marchen  separates  and  medi- 
ates ?  This  is  a  difficult  question.  No  interpreta- 
tion tallies  exactly  with  all  the  particulars  of  tlie 
allegory.  The  most  satisfactory  is  that  of  a  separa- 
tion and  a  means  of  communication  between  State 
and  people,  between  official,  established  tradition  and 
popular  life. 

To  return  to  the  story.  The  Ferryman,  roused  from 
his  slumbers,  opens  the  door  of  the  hut,  and  sees  two 
Will-o'- wisps  who  are  impatient  to  be  put  across. 


140  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

These  are  the  bearers  of  the  new  ideas  which 
proved  so  stimulating  to  the  German  mind,  giving 
rise  to  what  is  known  in  German  literature  as  the 
Aufkldrung  (enlightenment).  Why  called  Will-o'- 
wisps  ?  They  come  from  France,  and  the  poet  means 
by  their  flashes  and  vivacity,  as  contrasted  with  Ger- 
man gravity,  to  indicate  their  French  origin. 

They  cause  the  Ferryman  much  trouble  by  their 
activity.  They  shake  gold  into  his  boat  (that  is, 
talk  philosophy,  the  philosophy  of  the  French  Ency- 
cloptedists) ;  he  fears  that  some  of  it  might  fall  into 
the  stream,  and  then  there  would  be  mischief;  the 
stream  would  rise  in  terrible  waves  and  enQulf  him. 

The  new  ideas  were  very  radical,  and,  if  allowed 
to  circulate  freely  in  social  converse,  might  cause  a 
revolution. 

He  bids  them  take  back  their  gold.  "  We  cannot 
take  back  what  we  have  once  given  forth." 

The  word  once  spoken  cannot  be  unspoken. 

When  they  reach  the  opposite  shore,  he  demands 
his  fare.  They  reply  that  he  who  will  not  take 
gold  for  pay  must  go  unpaid.  He  demands  fruits 
of  the  earth  (that  is,  practical  service),  which  they 
despise.  They  attempt  to  depart,  but  find  it  impos- 
sible to  move. 

Philosophy  without  practical  ability  can  make  no 
headway  in  real  life. 

He  finally  releases  them,  on  their  promise  to  bring- 
to  the  Eiver  three  cabbages,  three  artichokes,  and 
three  onions. 


GOETHE'S  MARC  HEN.  141 

I  am  not  aware  that  there  is  any  particular  signifi- 
cance in  tlie  several  kinds  of  vegetables  here  speci- 
fied. The  general  meaning  is,  that  whoever  would 
work  effectually  in  his  time  must  satisfy  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  time,  must  pay  his  toll  to  the  State  with 
contributions  of  practical  utility. 

The  ferryman  then  rows  down  the  stream,  gathers 
up  the  gold  that  has  fallen  into  the  boat,  goes 
ashore  and  buries  it  in  an  out  of  the  way  place  in 
the  cleft  of  a  rock,  then  rows  back  to  his  hut. 

Now  in  the  rock  cleft  into  which  the  gold  had  been 
cast  dwelt  the  Green  Serpent.  The  Serpent  is  sup- 
posed to  represent  German  Literature,  which  until 
then  had  kept  itself  aloof  from  the  world,  had  wan- 
dered as  it  were  in  a  wilderness.  But  the  time  was 
now  come  when  it  was  to  receive  new  light  and  be 
quickened  with  new  impulse. 

She  hears  the  chink  of  the  falling  gold  pieces,  darts 
upon  thein,  and  eagerly  devours  them.  They  melt  in 
her  interior,  and  she  becomes  self-luminous,  —  a  thing 
that  she  had  always  been  hoping  for,  but  had  never 
until  then  attained. 

Proud  of  her  new  lustre  she  sallies  forth  to  discover 
if  possible  whence  the  gold  which  came  to  her  had 
been  derived.  She  encounters  the  Will-o'-wisps,  and 
claims  relationship  with  them. 

"  Well,  yes,"  they  allow,  "  you  are  a  kind  of  cousin, 
but  you  are  in  the  horizontal  line  ;  we  are  vertical. 
See  here."  They  shoot  up  to  their  utmost  height. 
"  Pardon  us,  good  lady,  but  what  other  family  can 


142  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

boast  of  anything  like  that?  No  Will-o'-wisp  ever 
sits  or  lies  down."  The  Serpent  is  somewhat  abashed 
by  the  comparison.  She  knows  very  well  that  al- 
though, when  at  rest,  she  can  lift  her  head  pretty 
high,  she  must  bend  to  earth  again  to  make  any 
progress.  She  inquires  if  they  can  tell  her  where 
the  gold  came  from  which  dropped  in  the  cave  where 
she  resides.  They  are  amused  at  the  question,  and 
immediately  shake  from  themselves  a  shower  of  gold 
pieces,  which  she  greedily  devours.  "Much  good 
may  it  do  you,  madam." 

In  return  for  this  service  they  desire  to  be  shown 
the  way  to  the  abode  of  the  Fair  Lily,  to  whom  they 
would  pay  their  respects. 

The  Fair  Lily  represents  Ideal  Beauty. 

The  Serpent  is  sorry  to  inform  them  that  the  Lily 
dwells  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  "  On  the 
other  side  ! "  they  exclaim,  "  and  we  let  ourselves  be 
ferried  across  to  this  side,  last  night,  in  the  storm ! 
But  perhaps  the  Ferryman  may  be  still  within  call, 
and  be  willing  to  take  us  back."  "  No,"  she  says, 
"  he  can  bring  passengers  from  the  other  side  to  this, 
but  is  not  permitted  to  take  any  one  back." 

The  interpretation  here  is  doubtful.  It  may  mean, 
that,  while  a  jealous  government  is  willing  to  as- 
sist in  the  deportation  of  questionable  characters, 
it  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  them  on  its  own 
ground. 

But  besides  the  government  ferry  there  are  other 
means   of  getting   across.     The    Serpent  herself,  by 


GOETHE'S  MARCHEN.  143 

making  a  bridge  of  her  body,  can  take  them  across  at 
hidi  noon. 

Literature  in  its  supreme  achievements,  its  me- 
ridian power,  becomes  a  vehicle  of  ideas  which  defies 
political  embargo. 

But  Will-o'-wisps  do  not  travel  at  noonday.  An- 
other passage  is  possible  at  morning  and  evening 
twilight  by  means  of  the  shadow  of  tlie  Great  Giant. 
The  Giant's  body  is  powerless,  but  its  shadow  is 
mighty,  and,  when  the  sun  is  low,  stretches  across 
the  River. 

Here  all  commentators  seem  to  agree  in  one  inter- 
pretation. Says  Carlyle,  "  Can  any  mortal  head,  not 
a  wigblock,  doubt  that  the  Giant  of  this  poem  is 
Superstition  ?  "  This  is  loosely  expressed.  Unques- 
tionably superstition,  in  the  way  of  fable  or  fore- 
boding, stretches  far  into  the  unknown.  But  it 
is  a  shaclovj  according  to  the  Tale,  which  possesses 
this  power.  Now,  to  make  a  shadow  two  things 
are  needed,  —  light,  and  a  body  which  intercepts  the 
liglit.  The  body  in  this  case  is  popular  ignorance; 
that  is  the  real  giant.  Superstition  is  that  giant's 
shadow,  strongest  and  longest,  of  course,  when  the 
sun  is  low. 

Thus  instructed,  the  Will-o'-wisps  take  their  leave, 
and  the  Serpent  returns  to  her  cave. 

Now  follows  the  scene  in  the  subterranean  Temple, 
the  Temple  of  the  Four  Kings,  —  by  which  we  are  to 
understand  historic  Germany,  the  Germany  of  old 
time.     The  Serpent  has  discovered  this  temple,  and, 


144  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

having  become  luminous,  is  able  to  see  what  it  con- 
tains. There  are  the  statues  of  four  kings.  The 
hrst  is  of  gold,  the  second  of  silver,  the  third  of 
lironze,  the  fourth  a  compound  of  several  metals. 
The  first  King,  vrho  wears  a  plain  mantle  and  no 
ornament  but  a  garland  of  oak  leaves,  represents  the 
rule  of  Wisdom  and  acknowledoed  worth.  Tlie  sec- 
ond,  who  sits  and  is  highly  decorated,  —  robe,  crown, 
sceptre,  adorned  with  precious  stones, — represents 
the  rule  of  Appearance  (Schein),  majesty  supported 
by  prestige  and  tradition.  The  third,  also  sitting, 
represents  government  by  Force.  The  fourth,  tlie 
composite  figure  in  a  standing  posture,  represents  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire  of  Germany.  The  Serpent  has 
been  discoursing  with  the  Gold  King,  when  the  wall 
opens  and  enters  an  old  man  of  middle  stature  in 
peasant's  dress,  cariying  a  lamp  with  a  still  fiame 
pleasing  to  look  upon,  which  illumines  the  whole 
temple  without  casting  any  shadow.  This  lamp 
possesses  the  strange  property  of  changing  stones 
into  gold,  wood  into  silver,  dead  animals  into  pre- 
cious stones,  and  of  annihilating  metals.  But  to 
exercise  this  power  it  must  shine  alone ;  if  another 
light  appears  beside  it,  it  only  diffuses  a  clear  radi- 
ance, by  which  all  living  things  are  refreshed. 

The  bearer  of  this  lamp  is  supposed  by  Baumgart 
to  represent  Science  (  Wisscnschaft),  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  his  function  includes  practical  wisdom  as 
well.  What  is  signified  by  the  marvellous  pro]ierties 
of  the  lamp  nmst  be  left  to  each  reader  to  conjecture. 


GOETHE'S  MlRCHEN.  145 

"Why  do  you  come,"  asks  the  Gold  King  of  the 
Man  with  the  lamp,  "  seeing  we  already  have  liglit  ? " 
"  You  know  that  I  cannot  enlighten  what  is  wholly 
dark,"  is  the  reply. 

Wisdom  does  not  concern  itself  with  what  is  un- 
searchable, with  matters  transcending  human  ken. 

"  Will  my  kingdom  end  ? "  asks  the  Silver  King. 
"  Late  or  never."  The  Brazen  King  asks, "  When  shall 
I  arise?"  The  answer  is,  "Soon."  "With  whom  sliall 
I  combine  ?"  "  With  your  elder  brothers."  "  What 
will  the  youngest  do  ?  "  inquired  the  King.  "  He  will 
sit  down,"  replied  the  Man  with  the  lamp.  "I  am 
not  tired,"  growled  the  fourth  King, 

The  Empire,  even  at  that  date,  was  still  tenacious 
of  its  sway. 

Again  the  Gold  King  asks  of  the  Man  with  the  lamp, 
"  How  many  secrets  kno west  thou  ? "  "  Three,"  replied 
the  man.  "  Which  is  the  most  important  ? "  asks  the 
Silver  King.     "  The  open  secret,"  the  man  replies. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  a  truth,  or  conviction, 
is,  as  we  say,  "  in  the  air,"  before  the  word  which  for- 
mulates it  has  been  spoken ;  it  is  an  open  secret. 
Thus,  in  the  closing  months  of  1860,  "  Secession  "  was 
in  the  air ;  it  was  our  open  secret. 

"  Wilt  thou  open  it  to  us  also  ? "  asks  the  Brazen 
King.  "  When  I  know  the  fourth,"  replied  the  Man. 
"I  know  the  fourth,"  said  the  Serpent,  and  whispered 
something  in  the  ear  of  the  Man  with  the  lamp.  He 
cried  with  a  loud  voice,  "  The  time  is  at  hand."  The 
temple  resounded,  the  statues  rang  with  the  cry;  and 

10 


146  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

immediately  the  Man  with  the  lamp  vanished  to  the 
west,  the  Serpent  to  the  east. 

Here  ends  the  first  act  of  this  prophetic  drama. 
Tlie  Man  with  the  lamp  returns  to  his  cottage,  where 
the  Old  Woman,  his  wife,  greets  him  with  loud  lamen- 
tations. "  Scarcely  were  you  gone,"  she  whimpers, 
"  when  two  impetuous  travellers  called  ;  they  were 
dressed  in  flames,  and  seemed  quite  respectable.  One 
might  have  taken  them  for  Will-o'-wisps.  But  they 
soon  began  to  flatter  me  and  made  impertinent  ad- 
vances." "  Pooh!  they  were  only  chaffing  you.  Con- 
sidering your  age,  my  dear,  they  could  n't  have  meant 
anything  serious."  "  My  age  indeed !  always  my  age  ! 
How  old  am  I  then  ?  But  I  know  one  thing.  Just 
look  at  these  w^alls !  See  the  bare  stones !  They  have 
licked  off  all  the  gold ;  and  when  they  had  done  it, 
they  dropped  gold  pieces  about.  Our  dear  pug  swal- 
lowed some  of  them,  and  see  there,  the  poor  creature 
lies  dead." 

The  Old  Woman  represents  the  Church,  the  ac- 
cepted, traditional  religion.  There  is  a  beautiful  fitness 
in  this  symbolism.  Science  and  religion,  knowledge 
and  faith,  are  mutually  complemental  in  human  life. 
The  little  pug  may  mean  some  pet  dogma  of  the 
Church  ;  Baumgart  suggests  belief  in  the  supernatural, 
to  which  modern  enlightenment  (the  gold  of  the  Will- 
o'-wisps)  proves  fatal.  The  little  pug  dies ;  but  a  doc- 
trine wliich  perishes,  which  becomes  obsolete  as  popu- 
lar belief,  may  become  historically  precious  as  myth. 


GOETHE'S  MARC  HEN.  147 

This  is  what  is  meant  when  it  is  said,  farther  on,  that 
the  old  man  with  his  lamp  changes  the  pug  to  an 
onyx.  Moreover,  when  such  myth  is  embraced  by 
poetry,  it  acquires  a  new,  transfigured,  immortal  life. 
Thus  the  gods  of  Greece  still  live,  and  li-ve  forever,  in 
Homer's  song.  In  this  sense,  with  this  aim,  the  Man 
with  the  lamp  sends  the  onyx  pug  to  the  Fair  Lily, 
whose  touch  causes  dead  things  to  live. 

The  Old  Woman  had  incautiously  promised  the 
Will-o'- wisps  —  in  order,  we  may  suppose,  to  get  rid 
of  them — to  pay  their  debt  to  the  Eiver,  of  three 
cabbages,  three  artichokes,  and  three  onions. 

But  why  did  they  visit  her  cottage  at  all,  and  why 
so  intent  on  the  obsolete  gold  on  its  walls  ?  The 
answer  is,  modern  culture  knows  full  well  that  the 
Church  is  the  depositary  of  many  precious  truths, 
which,  though  no  longer  current  in  the  form  in  which 
they  were  once  clothed,  approve  and  justify  them- 
selves when  restated  and  given  to  the  world  in  a  new 
form.  So  they,  the  New  Lights,  say  in  effect  to  the 
Church,  "  Old  Lady,  you  are  somewhat  out  of  date ;  if 
you  mean  to  keep  your  place  and  vindicate  your  right 
to  be,  you  must  throw  yourself  into  the  life  of  the 
time,  you  must  contribute  something  useful  to  forward 
that  life.  It  is  through  you  that  the  new  philosophy 
must  discharge  its  debt  to  the  Eiver  "  (that  is,  to  the 
life  of  the  time). 

The  Man  with  the  lamp  approves  and  seconds  the 
commission  intrusted  to  his  wife  by  the  Will-o'- wisps, 
and  at  dawn  of  day  loads  her  with  the  cabbages,  the 


148  LIFE  AND    GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

artichokes,  and  the  onions  destined  for  the  Eiver,  to 
which  he  adds  the  onyx  as  a  present  to  the  Fair  Lily. 
The  first  part  of  her  mission  is  a  failure.  On  her  way 
to  the  ferry  she  encounters  the  Shadow  of  the  blunder- 
ing Giant  stretching  across  the  plain.  The  Shadow 
unceremoniously  puts  its  black  fingers  into  her  basket, 
takes  out  three  vegetables,  one  of  each  kind,  and 
thrusts  them  into  the  mouth  of  the  Giant,  who  greed- 
ily devours  them. 

Some  freak  of  popular  ignorance  intercepts  and 
impairs  the  practical  benefit  which  the  new  cul- 
ture, through  the  Church,  had  hoped  to  confer  on 
the  age. 

The  Ferryman  refuses  to  accept  the  imperfect  offer- 
ing as  full  satisfaction  of  the  Will-o'-wisps'  debt,  and 
only  consents  at  last  to  receive  it  provisionally,  if 
the  Old  Woman  will  swear  to  make  the  number  good 
within  twenty-four  hours.  She  is  required  to  dip  her 
hand  in  the  stream  and  take  the  oath.  She  dips  and 
swears.  But  when  she  withdraws  her  hand,  behold  ! 
it  has  turned  black  ;  and,  what  is  worse,  has  grown 
smaller,  and  seems  likely  to  disappear  altogether. 

The  apparent  dignity  of  the  Church  is  impaired  by 
contact  with  vulgar  life. 

"  0  woe  ! "  she  cries.  "  My  beautiful  hand,  which 
I  have  taken  so  much  pains  with  and  have  always 
kept  so  nice  !  What  will  become  of  me  ? "  The 
Ferryman  tries  to  comfort  her  with  the  assurance 
that,  although  the  hand  might  become  invisible,  she 
would  be  able  to  use  it  all  the  same.     "  But,"  says 


GOETHE'S  MARCHEN.  149 

she,  "  I  would  rather  not  be  able  to  use  it  than  not 
have  it  seen." 

Here  is  a  stroke  of  satire  on  the  part  of  the  poet, 
implying  that  the  Church  cares  more  for  the  show  of 
authority  than  for  the  substance. 

Sad  and  sullen  the  Old  Woman  takes  up  her  bas- 
ket and  bends  her  steps  toward  the  abode  of  the  Fair 
Lily.  On  the  way  she  overtakes  a  pilgrim  more 
disconsolate  than  herself;  a  beautiful  youth,  with 
noble  features,  abundant  brown  locks,  his  breast 
covered  with  glittering  mail,  a  purple  cloak  depend- 
ing from  his  shoulders.  His  naked  feet  paced  the 
hot  sand ;  profound  grief  appeared  to  render  him 
insensible  to  external  impressions.  The  Old  Woman 
endeavors  to  open  a  conversation  with  him,  but 
receives  no  encouragement.  She  desists  with  the 
apology,  "  You  walk  too  slow  for  me,  sir.  I  must 
liurry  on,  for  I  have  to  cross  the  Eiver  on  the  Green 
Serpent,  that  I  may  take  this  present  from  my  hus- 
band to  the  Fair  Lily."  "  You  are  going  to  the  Fair 
Lily,"  he  cried ;  "  then  our  roads  are  the  same.  But 
what  is  this  present  you  are  bringing  her  ? "  She 
showed  him  the  onyx  pug.  "  Happy  beast ! "  he  ex- 
claimed ;  "  thou  wilt  be  touched  by  her  hands,  thou 
wilt  be  made  alive  by  her ;  wliereas  the  living  are 
forced  to  stand  aloof  from  her  lest  they  experience  a 
mournful  doom.  Look  at  me,"  he  continued,  "  how 
sad  my  condition  !  This  mail  which  I  have  worn 
with  honor  in  war,  this  purple  which  I  have  sought 
to  merit  by  wise  conduct,  are  all  that  is  left  me  by 


150  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

fate,  —  the  one  a  useless  burden,  the  other  an  un- 
meaning decoration.  Crown,  sceptre,  and  sword  are 
gone  ;  I  am  in  all  other  respects  as  naked  and  needy 
as  any  son  of  earth.  So  unblest  is  the  influence  of 
her  beautiful  blue  eyes  ;  they  deprive  all  living  be- 
ings of  their  strength,  and  those  who  are  not  killed 
by  the  touch  of  her  hand  find  themselves  turned 
into  walking  shadows." 

This  is  finely  conceived.  The  Youth,  the  Prince 
who  has  lost  sceptre  and  sword,  represents  the 
Genius  of  Germany,  once  so  stalwart  and  capable 
in  action,  now  (at  the  time  of  Goethe's  writing) 
enervated  and  become  a  melancholy  dreamer  from 
excessive  devotion  to  the  Lily,  that  is,  excessive 
Idealism ;  whereby 

"  Enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment 

their  currents  turn  awry, 

And  lose  the  name  of  action." 

Such  was  Germany  in  those  days.  And  even  later, 
Freiligrath  compared  her  to  Hamlet,  in  whom 

"  The  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought." 

The  travellers  cross  the  bridge  which  the  Serpent 
makes  for  them.  The  Serpent  herself  straightens 
out  her  bow  and  accompanies  them.  On  the  way 
the  Will-o'- wisps,  invisible  in  broad  day,  are  heard 
whispering  a  request  to  the  Serpent  that  she  would 
introduce  them  to  the  Lily  in  the  evening,  as  soon  as 
they   should   be   any   way  presentable.      The   Lily 


GOETHE'S  MARCHEN.  151 

receives  her  visitors  graciously,  but  with  an  air  of 
deep  dejection.  She  imparts  to  the  Old  Woman  her 
recent  affliction.  While  her  pet  Canary-bird  was 
warbling  its  morning  hymn,  a  Hawk  appeared  in  the 
air  and  threatened  to  pounce  upon  it.  The  fright- 
ened creature  sought  refuge  in  its  mistress's  bosom, 
and,  like  all. living  things,  was  killed  by  her  touch. 

The  Hawk  represents  the  newly  awakened,  impa- 
tient spirit  of  German  Patriotism,  which  scared  into 
silence  the  lighter  lyrics  of  the  time. 

The  Old  Woman  presents  the  onyx  pug,  and  the 
Lily  is  delighted  with  the  gift.  Her  touch  gives  it 
life.  She  plays  with  it,  caresses  it.  The  melancholy 
youth  who  stands  by  and  looks  on  is  maddened  with 
jealousy  at  the  sight.  "  Must  a  nasty  little  beast  be 
so  fondled,  and  receive  her  kiss  on  its  black  snout, 
while  I,  her  adorer,  am  kept  at  a  distance  ?"  At 
last  he  can  bear  it  no  longer,  and  resolves  to  perish 
in  her  arms.  He  rushes  towards  her ;  she,  knowing 
the  consequence,  instinctively  puts  out  her  arms  to 
ward  him  off,  and  thereby  hastens  the  catastrophe. 
The  youth  falls  lifeless  at  her  feet. 

Here  ends  the  second  act.  The  Genius  of  Ger- 
many is  apparently  extinct.  Can  it  be  revived? 
The  third  and  final  act  foreshows  its  revival,  —  the 
political  rehabilitation  of  Germany.  I  am  compelled 
by  want  of  time  to  omit,  in  what  follows,  many  of 
the  accessories,  such  as  the  female  attendants  of 
the  Lily,  the  mirror,  the  last  desperate  freaks  of  the 


152  LIFE  AND  GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

Giant,  etc.,  and  to  keep  myself  to  the  main  thread 
of  the  story. 

The  first  object  now,  on  the  part  of  those  inter- 
ested, is  to  prevent  corruption,  which  would  make 
resuscitation  impossible.  So  the  Serpent  forms  with 
her  body  a  cordon  around  the  lifeless  form  of  the 
Youth  to  protect  it.  "  Who  will  fetch  the  Man  with 
the  lamp  ? "  she  cries,  fearing  every  moment  that  the 
sun  will  set  and  dissolution  penetrate  the  magic 
circle,  causing  the  body  of  the  Youth  to  fall  in 
pieces.  At  length  she  espies  the  Hawk  in  the  air, 
and  hails  the  auspicious  omen. 

Patriotism  still  lives. 

Shortly  after,  the  Man  with  the  lamp  appears. 
"  Whether  I  can  help,"  he  says,  "  I  know  not.  The 
individual  by  himself  cannot  do  much,  but  only  he 
who,  at  the  proper  moment,  combines  with  many." 

All  who  have  their  country's  salvation  at  heart 
must  join  their  forces  in  time  of  need. 

Night  comes  on.  The  Old  Man  glances  at  the  stars 
and  says, "  We  are  here  at  the  propitious  hour ;  let 
each  do  his  duty  and  perform  his  part."  The  Serpent 
then  began  to  stir ;  she  loosened  her  enfolding  circle, 
and  slid  in  large  volumes  toward  the  Eiver.  The 
Will-o'-wisps  followed.  The  Old  Man  and  his  Wife 
seized  the  basket,  lifted  into  it  the  body  of  the  Youth, 
and  laid  the  Canary-bird  upon  his  breast.  The  basket 
rose  of  itself  into  the  air,  and  hovered  over  tlie  Old 
Woman's  head.  She  followed  the  Will-o'-wisps.  The 
Fair  Lily  with  the  pug  in  her  arms  followed  the  Wo- 


GOETHE'S  MlRCHEN.  153 

man,  and  the  Man  with  the  lamp  closed  the  procession. 
The  Serpent  bridged  the  River  for  them,  and  then 
drew  her  circle  again  around  the  basket  containing 
the  body  of  the  Youth.  The  Old  Man  stoops  down  to 
her  and  asks,  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  ? "  "  Sacri- 
fice myself,"  she  answers,  "  rather  than  be  sacrificed." 
The  Man .  bids  the  Lily  touch  the  Serpent  with  one 
hand  and  the  body  of  the  Youth  with  the  other.  She 
does  so,  and  behold !  the  Youth  comes  to  life  again, 
but  not  to  full  consciousness.  Then  the  Ser^jent 
bursts  asunder.  Her  form  breaks  into  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  glittering  jewels.  These  the  Man 
with  the  lamp  gathers  up  and  casts  into  the  stream, 
where  they  afterward  form  a  solid  and  permanent 
bridge.  The  Old  Man  now  leads  the  party  to  the 
cave.  They  stand  before  the  Temple  barred  with 
golden  lock  and  bolt.  The  Will-o'-wisps  at  the  bid- 
ding of  the  Old  Man  melt  bolt  and  lock  with  their 
flames,  and  the  company  are  in  the  presence  of  the 
four  Kings.  "  Whence  come  ye  ? "  asks  the  Gold 
King.  "From  the  world,"  is  the  reply.  "Whither 
go  ye  ?  "  asked  the  Silver  King.  "  Into  the  world." 
"  What  would  ye  with  us  ? "  asked  the  Brazen  King. 
"  Accompany  you,"  said  the  Old  Man.  "  Who  will 
govern  the  world  ? "  asked  the  Composite  King.  "  He 
who  stands  on  his  feet,"  is  the  answer.  "  That  am  I," 
said  the  King.  "  We  shall  see,"  said  the  Old  Man, 
"  for  the  time  is  come." 

Then  the  ground  beneath  them  began  to  tremble ; 
the  Temple  was  in  motion.     For  a  few  moments  a  fine 


154  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

shower  seemed  to  drizzle  from  above.  "  We  are  now 
beneath  the  Eiver,"  said  the  Old  Man.  The  Temple 
mounts  upward.  Suddenly  a  crash  is  heard  ;  planks 
and  beams  come  through  tlie  opening  of  the  dome. 
It  is  the  old  Ferryman's  hut,  which  the  Temple  in  its 
ascent  had  detached  from  the  ground.  It  descends 
and  covers  the  Old  Man  and  the  Youth.  The  wo- 
men, who  find  themselves  excluded,  beat  against  the 
door  of  the  hut,  which  is  locked.  After  a  while  the 
door  and  walls  begin  to  ring  with  a  metallic  sound. 
The  flame  of  the  Old  Man's  lamp  has  converted  the 
wood  into  silver.  The  very  form  has  changed ;  the 
hut  has  become  a  smaller  temple,  or,  if  you  will,  a 
shrine,  within  the  larger. 

Observe  the  significance  of  this  feature  of  the  Tale. 
The  hut,  as  was  said,  represents  the  existing  govern- 
ment. New  Germany  is  not  to  be  the  outcome  of  a 
violent  revolution  forcibly  abolishing  the  old,  but  a 
natural  growth  receiving  the  old  into  itself,  assimilat- 
ing and  embodying  it  in  a  new  constitution. 

When  the  Youth  came  forth  from  the  transformed 
hut,  it  was  in  company  with  a  man  clad  in  a  white 
robe,  bearing  a  silver  oar  in  his  hand.  This  was  the 
old  Ferryman,  now  to  become  a  functionary  in  the 
new  State. 

As  soon  as  the  rising  sun  illumined  the  cupola  of 
the  Temple,  the  Old  Man,  standing  between  the  Youth 
and  the  Maiden  (the  Lily),  said  witli  a  loud  voice, 
"  There  are  three  that  reign  on  earth.  Wisdom,  Show, 
Force."     When  the  first  was  named,  up  rose  the  Gold 


GOETHE'S  MARC II EN.  155 

King ;  with  the  second,  the  Silver.  The  Brazen  King 
was  rising  slowly  at  the  sound  of  the  third,  when  the 
Composite  King  (the  Holy  Koman  Empire)  suddenly 
collapsed  into  a  shapeless  heap.  The  Man  with  the 
lamp  now  led  the  still  half-conscious  Youth  to  the 
Brazen  King,  at  whose  feet  lay  a  sword.  The  Youth 
girded  himself  with  it.  "The  sword  on  the  left," 
said  the  mighty  King,  "  the  right  hand  free."  They 
then  went  to  the  Silver  King,  who  gave  the  Youth 
his  sceptre,  saying,  "Feed  the  sheep."  They  came 
to  the  Gold  King,  who,  with  a  look  that  conveyed  a 
paternal  blessing,  crowned  the  Youth's  head  with  a 
garland  of  oak  leaves,  and  said,  "  Acknowledge  the 
Highest." 

The  Youth  now  awoke  to  full  consciousness  ;  his 
eyes  shone  with  an  unutterable  spirit,  and  his  first 
word  was,  "  Lily."  He  clasped  the  fair  maiden,  whose 
cheeks  glowed  with  an  inextinguishable  red,  and,  turn- 
ing to  the  Old  Man,  said,  with  a  glance  at  the  three 
sacred  figures,  "  Glorious  and  safe  is  the  kingdom  of 
our  fathers;  but  you  forgot  the  fourth  power,  that 
which  earliest,  most  universal,  and  surest  of  all,  rules 
the  world,  —  the  power  of  Love."  "  Love,"  said  the 
Old  Man,  smiling,  "does  not  rule,  but  educates. 
And  that  is  better." 

And  so  the  Temple  stands  by  the  Paver.  The 
Old  Woman,  having  at  the  bidding  of  her  husband 
bathed  in  its  waves,  conies  forth  rejuvenated  and  beau- 
tified.    The  Old  Man  himself  looks  younger. 

Husband  and  wife,  Science  and  Eeligion,  renew 


156  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

their   nuptial   vows,  and   pledge   their  troth  for  in- 
definite time. 

The  prophecy  is  accomplished.  What  Genius  pre- 
dicted ninety  years  ago  has  become  fact.  The  Tem- 
ple stands  by  the  Eiver,  the  bridge  is  firm  and  wide. 
The  Genius  of  Germany  is  no  longer  a  sighing,  sickly 
youth,  pining  after  the  unattainable,  but,  having  mar- 
ried his  ideal,  is  now  embodied  in  the  mighty  Chan- 
cellor whose  state-craft  founded  the  new  Empire,  and 
whose  word  is  a  power  among  the  nations. 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     157 


VI. 


GOETHE'S    RELATION    TO    ENGLISH 
LITERATURE. 

By  F.   B.  SANBORN. 

In  that  triangulation  and  speculative  mensura- 
tion of  the  greatest  German  intellect  which  we  liave 
this  year  attempted,  I  have  been  assigned  to  a  single 
field,  "  Goethe's  Relation  to  English  Literature."  If 
this  were  understood  to  mean  the  influence  upon 
Goethe's  own  work  of  the  antecedent  literature  of 
England,  one  could  almost  treat  this  theme  as  the 
old  writer  did  when  describing  Iceland.  One  of  his 
chapters  contained  this  and  nothing  more:  "Chap- 
ter VI.  Concerning  Serpents  in  Iceland.  There  are,, 
no  serpents  in  Iceland."  _^  " 

When  Handel,  the  great  German  musician,  went 
to  Ireland  about  1722,  he  carried  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion from  some  of  his  English  Tory  friends  to  Dean 
Swift,  then  living  near  Dublin.  As  soon  as  the 
Dean  heard  he  was  a  German  musician,  he  declined 
to  see  Handel ;  but  when  his  servant  added  that  the 
bearer  of  the  letter  was  "  a  great  genius,"  Swift  cried 
out,  "  What !  a  genius  and  a  German !  show  him  up 


158  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

this  instant."  Such  was  the  reputation  which  the 
intellectual  character  of  the  Germans  inspired  in 
Great  Britain  thirty  years  before  Goethe  was  born ; 
and  such  it  continued  through  much  of  the  lifetime 
of  Frederic  the  Great,  who  made  Germany  so  respect- 
able in  matters  of  war  and  state- craft.  That  singular 
and  useful  tyrant,  whose  life  Carlyle  has  so  brilliantly 
related,  had  the  greatest  contempt  for  his  country's  lit- 
erature, which  he  would  not  read,  and  for  its  clumsy 
language,  which  he  did  not  know  how  to  spell.  He 
had  contracted  this  prejudice  in  his  youth,  before 
Goethe  was  born,  and  he  continued  in  it  after  Goe- 
the, who  even  more  than  Handel  was  "a  German 
and  a  genius,"  had  begun  to  publish  his  youthful 
works.  Goethe  was  born  at  Frankfort,  outside  of 
Frederic's  dominions,  in  1749;  he  published  his  first 
important  work,  the  play  of  "Gotz  von  Berlich- 
ingen,"  in  1773,  and  about  this  time  Frederic  wrote 
an  "  Essay  on  German  Literature,"  ^  in  which  he 
said :  — 

"To  convince  yourself  of  the  little  taste  which  prevails 
in  Germany,  you  need  only  go  to  our  theatres ;  there  you 
will  see  the  abominable  works  of  Shakespeare  exhibited, 
in  German  translations,  while  the  whole  audience  almost 
die  with  delight,  as  they  listen  to  ridiculous  farces, 
worthy  of  American  barbarians.  Shakespeare  perhaps 
may  be  pardoned  his  caprices,  because  the  birth  of  an  art 
is  never  its  point  of  perfection  ;  but  here  we  have  a  '  Gotz 

1  This  Essay  was  communicated  by  Frederic  to  D'Alembert  in 
January,  1781. 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     159 

von  Berlichingen  '  making  his  appearance,  —  a  detestable 
imitation  of  these  wretched  English  productions.  The 
pit  applauds,  and  enthusiastically  demands  a  repetition 
of  such  disgusting  dulness." 

Even  in  1777,  when  "  The  Woes  of  Young  Wer- 
ther "  had  cajitivated  Europe,  and  "  Faust  "  and 
"  Ipliigenia  "  were  begun  by  Goethe,  who  was  then 
twenty-eight  years  old,  and  at  the  height  of  liis 
poetic  creativeness,  neither  Frederic  nor  the  old  Vol- 
taire, who  constantly  wrote  letters  complimenting 
each  otlier,  valued  this  rising  star  in  the  least  degree. 
Frederic  wrote  to  Voltaire,  December  17,  1777 :  "As 
to  works  of  the  imagination,  I  am  convinced  that  we 
must  get  along  with  Homer,  Virgil,  Tasso,  Voltaire, 
and  Ariosto ;  for  the  human  mind  seems  to  be  wither- 
ing in  all  countries,  and  no  longer  produces  either 
fruit  or  flowers."  Of  these  poets  thus  named  the 
Prussian  King  preferred  Voltaire,  to  whom  he  had 
written  two  years  before :  "  You  are  the  rival  of 
Ariosto.  We  do  not  know  much  about  Homer's  life, 
but  Virgil  was  nothing  more  than  a  poet.  Eacine  did 
not  write  prose  well,  and  Milton  was  but  the  slave 
of  his  country's  tyrant.  You  alone  have  united  tal- 
ents so  various." 

Yet  the  great  Frederic,  with  all  this  blindness  to 
the  genius  that  was  before  his  aged  eyes,  did  finally 
predict  the  triumph  of  German  literature,  which  Goe- 
the and  Schiller  were  to  create.  In  one  of  his  papers, 
which  first  saw  the  light  after  his  death,  in  1786, 
appear  these  prophetic  words  :  — 


160  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETUE. 

"  We  shall  have  our  classic  authors ;  our  neighbors 
will  study  German,  and  it  will  be  spoken  in  the  courts 
of  princes.  Our  language,  polished  and  improved,  may 
haply,  in  the  books  of  great  writers,  extend  over  all 
Europe.  These  summer  days  of  German  literature  ■ap- 
proach. I  foretell  them,  but  shall  not  see  thera.  Age 
deprives  me  of  this  hope ;  like  Moses,  I  have  a  view  of 
the  promised  land,  but  may  not  enter  it." 

Frederic  was,  of  course,  as  ignorant  of  Schiller's 
genius  as  of  Goethe's.  In  1781,  tlie  year  that  Schiller 
brought  out  his  popular  play,  "  The  Eobbers,"  which 
still  keeps  the  stage  after  a  hundred  years,  the  old 
King  sent  to  D'Alembert,  in  Paris,  his  "  Essay  on  Ger- 
man Literature,"  already  cited,  and  in  his  accompany- 
ing letter  said  :  "  Our  language  does  not  deserve  to 
be  studied  till  good  authors  have  first  rendered  it  fa- 
mous ;  and  of  these  we  are  entirely  destitute.  They 
will  perhaps  appear  when  I  am  walking  in  the  Ely- 
sian  fields,  where  I  intend  to  offer  to  Virgil  the 
idyls  of  a  German  named  Gesner,  and  the  fables  of 
Gellert." 

But  to  return.  Goethe,  unlike  Schiller,  but  in  this 
like  Milton,  whom  he  did  not  much  read,  drew  more 
from  the  Greek  fountain  than  from  Shakespeare's 
"well  of  English  undefiled";  and  his  "  Iphigenia,"  like 
]\Iilton's  "  Samson,"  follows  closely  in  the  steps  of 
Greek  tragedy,  while  his  "Faust"  in  no  way  resem- 
bles the  "  Dr.  Faustus  "  of  Marlowe,  who  was  Shake- 
speare's only  brother  in  English  traged3%  but  has  a 
rich  Gothic  exuberance  of  its  own  in  the  first  part. 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     161 

and  a  broad  philosophic  conspectus,  broken  by  strains 
of  lyric  melody,  in  its  long-delayed  and  confusing 
conclusion.  In  fact,  the  form  of  Goethe's  "  Faust " 
is  no  less  original,  I  might  say  individual,  than  his 
conception  of  Satan,  who,  as  Mephistopheles,  sets  at 
defiance  every  preconceived  type  of  the  Evil  One. 

Doubtless  there  has  been  no  such  poetical  genius 
since  Shakespeare  as  this  German  dramatist  and  poet, 
who  is  also  novelist,  art  critic,  man  of  science,  and 
philosopher.  But  his  versatility,  and  the  whole  strain 
of  his  genius,  are  not  in  the  English  manner,  nor  bred 
in  any  English  school.  That  inward  vision  of  thought 
and  nature,  —  that  profound  conception  of  the  world's 
symbolism, —  which  is  so  wonderful  in  Shakespeare, 
and  in  other  English  poets  exists  in  a  less  degree,  is 
coupled  in  Goethe's  case  with  a  plodding,  patient, 
almost  pedantic  research  into  the  laws  and  methods, 
and  even  the  smallest  details,  of  nature  and  of 
thought.  Having  flown  to  his  height  of  imagination 
on  the  wings  of  poesy,  Goethe  must  needs  build  a 
stairway  therefrom  downward  to  the  merest,  most 
beggarly  elements;  so  that  he  and  others  shall  go  up 
and  down  as  they  please,  counting  every  step  of  the 
way.  Moreover,  while  Shakespeare  and  other  great 
poets  content  themselves  with  setting  forth  tlie  ideal, 
—  flashing  it  out  perhaps  for  a  single  moment  upon 
our  mind's  eye, — Goethe  insists  on  realizing  his  ideal  k  ]J^ 
in  every  form  and  institution  of  society.  In  this 
respect  he  resembles  Plato  more  than  any  of  the  mod- 
erns ;  yet  be  does  not  resemble  Bacon,  that  English 

11 


I 


162  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

truncated  Plato,  except  in  some  of  those  superficial 
points  of  similarity  which  do  not  touch  the  real 
character  of  the  two  men.  Goethe,  like  Bacon,  "  took 
all  knowledge  to  be  his  province " ;  like  Bacon,  he 
delighted  in  state  and  splendor,  in  the  completion  of 
his  theory  until  it-  should  fill  out  and  touch  at  every 
point  the  circumference  of  man's  world  ;  but  then  in 
that  poet's  eye  which,  with  fine  frenzy, 

"Doth  glance  from  heaven  to  earth,  from  earth  to  heaven," 

Goethe  excelled  the  English  Chancellor  even  more 
than  he  did  in  that  terrestrial  prudence  or  fortune 
which  so  handsomely  convoyed  him  through  life, 
while  Bacon  fell  into  disgrace  and  belittled  himself 
by  complaints  and  entreaties.  Indeed,  the  good  for- 
tune of  Goethe  was  something  almost  appalling,  and 
must  have  often  made  him  think  of  Polycrates  and  his 
ring ;  it  went  beyond  the  felicity  of  Shakespeare's  life, 
which  consisted  partly  in  his  obscurity ;  while  Goe- 
the was  at  once  conspicuous  and  safe,  —  admired,  and 
not  ruined  by  admiration.  Goethe  suffered  spiritually 
from  this  good  fortune,  and  I  must  say  that,  when 
compared  with  the  best  English  and  American  au- 
thors, the  finest  aroma  of  our  literature  —  which  pro- 
ceeds from  a  magnanimous  and  adventurous  character, 
displayed  now  in  love,  now  in  war,  now  in  the  heroism 
of  private  life  or  in  the  sanctities  of  religion  —  is  per- 
petually wanting  in  Goethe.  I  do  not  speak  now  of 
Shakespeare,  in  whom  this  magnanimity  had  its  wid- 
est and  highest  range,  but  of  lesser  poets  and  prose 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     1G3 

writers,  who  sometimes  in  very  humble  spheres  of  lit- 
erature display  the  same  winning  quality.  It  is  this 
which  gives  immortality  to  Sidney's  youthful  essays  in 
verse  and  prose, — which  makes  Herbert  memorable, 
Marvell  more  than  a  wit,  and  poor  Dryden  respect- 
able even  in  his  degradations ;  this  gleams  in  Donne 
and  Jeremy  Taylor,  in  Gray  and  Dr.  Johnson  ;  in 
Wordsworth,  Shelley,  and  Byron ;  in  Burns  and 
Carlyle  among  the  Scotch,  and  among  Americans 
in  Thoreau  and  Emerson,  in  Walt  Whitman,  and 
others  of  less  note.  It  is  by  virtue  of  an  untam- 
able energy  that  English  literature  is  capable  of 
rising  so  high,  and  sinking  so  low,  and  is  incapable 
of  that  measured  and  deliberate  excellence  of  wliich  "^ 
the  books  of  Plato  and  of  Goethe  are  perhaps  tlie 
best  examples. 

In  the  writings  of  Goethe,  not  less  than  in  his  life, 
we  see  the  limitations  wliich  egoism  imposes,  and 
which  not  his  great  genius  even  could  remove. 
"A  man,"  said  Cromwell  to  the  French  Ambassador, 
"never  rises  so  hio-h  as  when  he  knows  not  whither  '^ 
he  is  going."  Although  Goethe  would  fain  fol- 
low his  intuitions,  and  yield  himself  to  the  impulse 
of  the  moment,  his  very  intuitions  had  prudence 
and  self-love  in  them,  so  firndy  implanted  that 
he  could  never  escape  from  worldly  considerations. 
But  the  old  belief  of  mankind  is  wisest,  which 
declares  that  the  poet's  inspiration  is  greater  than 
any  worldly  prudence,  and  that  the  oracles  are 
sincere. 


164  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

Goethe's  relation  to  German  literature  was  some- 
thing different   from   Shakespeare's   relation   to   our 
own,  of  which  he  is  the  head  and  front,  but  which 
he  did  not  create,  nor  did  he  sustain  it  in  his  own 
time.     Without  Shakespeare  there  would  still  have 
been  an  important  and  universal  Enolish  literature, 
though  it  would  be  far  less   significant  and  poetic 
than   it   is.     Without   Goethe,   not   only  would  the 
literature   of  his  fatherland   be  less  poetic  and  less 
significant,    but    it    would    not    have     extended    so 
swiftly   over  Europe,  and  led   to  that  rapid  exten- 
sion of  German  philosophy,  and  German  science  also, 
which  our  century,  now  closing,  has  seen  and  prof- 
ited by.     Goethe  lived  to  be  nearly  as  old  as  Voltaire, 
dying  in    1832,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two;    and    his 
period  of  authorship  covered  more  than  sixty  of  those 
years.     His  greatest  woi-k,  "  Faust,"  was  only  com- 
pleted in    its  present  form   a  short  time    before  his 
death ;   his  next  greatest  book,  "  Wilhelm  Meister," 
was  in  fact  left  unfinished,  although  he  had  been  at 
work  on  it  for  thirty  years.     Besides    these  books, 
which  are    everywhere   known,  he   published   more 
than  forty  other  volumes;  while  his  letters  and  con- 
versations, printed  since  his    death,  and  his  manu- 
scripts at  Weimar,  soon  to  be  published,  will  make 
twenty  or  thirty  volumes  more.     Hardly  any  author, 
even  in  Germany,  has  written  so  much  ;  and  no  Ger- 
man author  —  not  even  Luther,  whose  books  are  the 
foundation  of  German  prose  literature  —  is  now  so 
indispensable  to  those  who  would  know  what  Ger- 


(JOETIIE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE      1G5 

many  has  thought,  or  what  modern  culture  is  and  has 
been  for  a  hundred  years  past.  He  is  the  greatest 
poet,  though  not  the  best  dramatist,  of  Germany  ; 
and  he  is  one  of  the  few  great  prose- writers  in  a  lan- 
guage that  does  not  readily  lend  itself,  as  the  French 
does,  to  graceful  prose,  or,  as  the  English  does,  to 
vigorous    arid  picturesque  prose. 

When  Goethe  began  to  study  and  to  write, — and  it 
is  hard  to  say  which  came  hrst  with  him,  —  the  litera- 
tures that  lay  before  hira  as  models  were  the  Greek, 
the  Latin,  the  French,  the  Italian,  and  the  English  ; 
in  later  years,  he  tasted  something  of  the  Oriental 
thouszht  and  literature.  Of  all  these  we  should  hold 
that  English  literature  was  the  greatest,  when  Shake- 
speare is  taken  into  account,  —  as  he  was,  and  very 
fully,  by  Goethe,  —  yet  the  Greek,  the  Latin,  and  espe- 
cially the  French,  exercised  apparently  a  more  potent 
sway  over  the  young  poet's  mind,  and  were  better 
known  to  him.  For  it  is  difficult  to  find  in  Goethe's 
fifty  volumes  any  serious  traces  of  English  influence 
from  the  literary  side,  although  he  read  and  admired 
Shakespeare  and  Marlowe,  knew  something  of  Bacon, 
Newton,  and  Milton,  praised  Goldsmith,  and  extended 
a  respectful  patronage  towards  Byron.  But  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  that  English  literature  impressed  him 
and  moulded  his  own  work  as  did  the  classical  litera- 
ture, tlie  Oriental,  or  even  the  French  and  Italian.  In 
this  respect,  as  in  so  many  others,  he  presents  a  con- 
trast to  Schiller,  who  was  deeply  influenced  in  his 
dramatic  forms  of  expression  by  Shakespeare,  as  he 


»^ 


166  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

was   by  Kant  iu  his  philosophic  theories  and  rules 
of  criticism.^ 

If  ever  men  are  self-forgetful,  it  is  when  they  are 
in  love,  —  at  least  for  a  brief  period  of  that  passion,  — 
and  it  is  the  magnanimity  thence  proceeding  which 
gives  worth  and  dignity  to  characters  otherwise  friv- 
olous or  brutal,  like  those  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra, 
who,  like  Othello,  "  loved  not  wisely  but  too  well." 
Goethe,  as  Dr.  Bartol  has  said,  loved  not  well  enough, 
but  too  wisely ;  he  lacked  that  magnanimity  which 
men  and  women  much  less  gifted  have  displayed  iu 
their  affection,  though  himself  magnanimous  in  the 
other  relations  of  life.  And  I  must  accuse  him  of 
another  great  fault,  which  he  never  learned  of  the 
English  poets ;  he  would  "  kiss  and  tell."  Shake- 
speare has  so  well  disguised  his  affairs  of  the  heart, 
that  it  will  always  remain  a  question,  not  only  whom 
he  loved,  but  whether  it  was  love  or  friendship  of 
which  he  wrote  so  wonderfully;  but  Goethe  has 
related   what   he   should   not   about   Gretchen,  and 


1  It  should  be  remembered  that  Kant,  the  greatest  of  all  the  Ger- 
man philosophical  writers,  was  an  older  contemporary  of  Schiller  and 
of  Goethe,  having  been  born  at  Konigsberg  in  1724,  a  quarter-century 
before  Goethe,  and  dying  there  in  1804,  the  year  before  Schiller's 
premature  death.  There  was  another  person  of  the  same  name  at 
Konigsberg  earlier,  whom  Frederick  the  Great  praised  (in  1739)  for 
his  eloquence,  and  his  graceful  use  of  the  awkward  German  lan- 
guage, saying  :  "I  confess  I  never  heard  better  German,  more  beau- 
tiful phrases,  nor  a  style  more  flowing  and  embellished.  M.  Kant 
is,  past  dispute,  the  first  man  in  the  kingdom  for  uttering  nonsense 
with  dignity."     See  Frederic's  letter  to  Jordan,  August  3,  1739. 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     167 

Annette,  and  Emilia,  and  Liicinda,  and  Frederica,  and 
Heaven  knows  how  many  more.  To  be  sure,  he  has 
given  them  an  immortaUty  thereby,  and  by  ideal- 
izing them  in  his  plays,  and  novels,  and  poems  ;  but 
even  there  we  feel  that  he  has  taken  an  unfair  ad- 
vantage of  these  fair  ones,  by  drawing  their  pictures 
for  the  world  to  see,  when  they  were  turning  their 
faces  toward  him  alone.  Whether  these  love  affairs 
were  innocent  or  not,  —  and  I  am  disposed  to  give 
them  always  the  most  favorable  construction,  —  there 
is  here  a  betrayal  of  confidence,  against  which  one  of 
the  minor  English  poets  of  Shakespeare's  time  had 
warned  him.     Donne  says :  — 

"  If,  as  I  have,  you  also  do 
Virtue  in  woman  see, 
And  dare  love  that,  and  sa)'  so  too, 
And  forget  the  He  and  She,  — 

"And  if  this  love,  though  placed  so, 
From  profane  men  you  hide, 
Who  will  no  faith  on  this  bestow, 
Or,  if  they  do,  deride,  — 

"  Then  you  have  done  a  braver  thing 
Than  all  the  Worthies  did, 
And  a  braver  thence  will  spring, 
Which  is,  to  keep  that  hid." 

Goethe  was  born  of  a  wealthy  burgher  family  in 
Frankfort,  ten  years  before  Schiller ;  and  they  both 
grew  to  manhood  at  a  time  when  England,  through 
Pitt   and  his  son,  had   much  to  say  and  do  in  the 


168  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

affairs  of  Germany.     Yet  the  connection  of  the  two 
countries  in  literary  matters  was  of  the  slightest. 

"  Pathless  the  gulf  of  feeling  yawns,"  — 

and  the  great  abyss  that  is  fixed  between  the  senti- 
yments  and  daily  opinions  of  Germany  and  England 
was  quite  as  wide  when  England  had  a  German  king 
as  it  is  to-day.  France  was  nearer  spiritually,  as 
well  as  geographically,  and  we  find  the  young  Goethe 
far  more  affected  by  Erench  than  by  English  books. 
He  read  Shakespeare  early,  and  felt  his  vast  powers  ; 
he  also  read  Richardson  and  Goldsmith,  and  found 
pleasure,  perhaps  inspiration,  in  "  The  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field " ;  but  the  daily  influence  of  Erench  thought 
and  the  Erench  style  did  more  to  modify  the  strong 
native  impulses  of  Goethe  than  any  impressions  that 
came  to  him  from  England.  No  sooner  did  he  begin 
to  become  known  in  England  however,  than  he  ex- 
erted an  influence  of  his  own  on  English  literature, 
which  has  been  growing  stronger  ever  since,  and  has 
had  some  remarkable  results,  —  chiefly  by  indirect 
radiation  through  Carlyle,  Emerson,  Matthew  Arnold, 
and  a  host  of  lesser  writers  or  translators.  The  first 
and  most  eminent  of  his  translators,  until  Carlyle 
appeared,  was  "Walter  Scott,  who,  in  1799,  published 
in  Edinburgh  a  version  of  "  Gotz  von  Berlichingen," 
which  Goethe  himself  had  published  twenty-six 
years  before.  In  itself  this  play  is  of  little  value, 
as  compared  with  the  later  works  of  Goethe ;  but 
it  has  a  peculiar  significance,  as  the  first  of  those 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     169 

feudal  romances  which,  forty  years  afterwards,  in  the 
hands  of  Scott,  became  such  an  important  part  of 
European  literature. 

The  real  work  of  Goethe,  indeed,  was  not  to  vary 
the  existing  forms  of  literature,  however  much  he 
might  do  this,  but  to  inspire  in  all  literature  a  deep 
conviction  of  the  unity  of  Nature  and  the  absolute 
activity  of  spirit.  Tliis,  once  done,  is  nothing  less 
than  regeneration  of  the  inner  life  of  literature,  which 
may  thenceforth  take  any  form,  old  or  new,  and  yet 
be  true  to  the  inworking  spirit.  Carlyle  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  of  British  writers  to  seize  this 
perception  of  Goethe's  mission,  and  he  was  certainly 
the  first  to  enforce  and  insist  upon  it  in  ways  that 
soon  wrought  an  actual,  if  incipient,  revival  in  the 
English-speaking  world  of  letters.  With  him  was  soon 
associated  our  own  Emerson,  who,  arriving  at  the 
same  insight,  not  through  Goethe's  illumination,  but 
by  his  own,  nevertheless  found  his  inward  light  ex- 
tended and  clarified  by  the  writings  of  both  Goethe 
and  Carlyle.  The  period  of  Goethe's  death  (March, 
1832)  may  be  taken  as  the  time  when  Carlyle  and 
Emerson  distinctly  perceived  that  they  stood  at  the 
opening  of  a  new  era ;  and  it  was  not  long  after- 
wards, when  they  met  at  Craigenputtock,  that  they 
also  became  aware  of  the  unity  existing  between 
them  upon  vital  issues,  and  that  they  were  appointed 
to  carry  forward  Goethe's  work  in  their  own  lands, 
and  with  reinforcement  of  each  other.  What  Car- 
lyle thought  at  Goethe's  death  he  has  left  on  record, 


^ 


170  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

and  we  may  "be  sure  that  in  essentials  Emerson 
would  have  said  the  same  things.  Carlyle  wrote  in 
"The  New  Monthly  Magazine"  for  1832  :  — 

"  So  then  our  Greatest  has  departed.  That  melody 
of  life,  with  its  cunning  tones,  which  took  captive  ear  and 
heart,  has  gone  silent:  the  heavenly  force  that  dwelt 
here,  victorious  over  so  much,  is  here  no  longer;  thus 
far,  not  farther,  shall  the  wise  man,  by  speech  and  by 
act,  utter  himself  forth.  .  .  .  Goethe,  it  is  commonly  said, 
made  a  now  era  in  literatui'e ;  a  Poetic  Era  began  with 
him,  the  end  or  ulterior  tendencies  of  which  are  yet  no- 
wise generally  visible.  This  common  saying  is  a  true  one  ; 
and  true  with  a  far  deeper  meaning  than,  to  the  most,  it 
conveys.  ...  It  begins  now  to  be  everywhere  surmised 
that  the  real  force,  which  in  this  world  all  things  must 
obey,  is  Insight,  Spiritual  Vision  and  Determination. 
The  Thought  is  parent  of  the  Deed,  nay,  is  living  soul 
of  it,  and  last  and  continual,  as  well  as  first  mover  of  it ; 
is  the  foundation,  beginning,  and  essence,  therefore,  of 
Man's  whole  existence  here  below.  The  true  sovereign 
of  the  world,  who  moulds  the  world,  like  soft  wax,  accord- 
ing to  his  pleasure,  is  he  who  lovingly  sees  into  the  world  ; 
the  inspired  thinker,  whom  in  these  days  we  name  Poet. 
The  true  sovereign  is  the  Wise  Man." 


't5' 


Some  years  later,  Emerson  added  his  testimony  as 
follows :  — 

"  The  Greeks  said,  Alexander  went  as  far  as  Chaos ; 
Goethe  went,  only  the  other  day,  as  far ;  and  one  step 
farther  he  hazarded  and  brought  himself  back.  He  has 
clothed  our  modern  existence  with  pogtry.     Amid  little- 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     171 

ness  and  detail,  he  detected  the  genius  of  life,  the  old 
cunning  Proteus,  nestling  close  beside  us,  and  showed 
that  the  dulness  and  prose  we  ascribe  to  the  age  was 
only  another  of  his  masks. 

*  His  very  flight  is  presence  in  disguise.' 

Goethe,  the  head  and  body  of  the  German  nation,  does 
not  speak  from  talent,  but  the  truth  shines  thi-ough ;  he 
is  very  wise,  though  his  talent  often  veils  his  wisdom. 
However  excellent  his  sentence  is,  he  has  somewhat  better 
in  view.  The  old  Eternal  Genius  who  built  the  world  has_ 
confided  himself  more  to  this  man  than  to  any  other.Jj 

Emerson  is  not  always  to  be  construed  literally, 
any  more  than  other  poets  are,  —  and  he  did  not  mean 
to  say  that  Goethe  was  nearer  to  the  old  Eternal 
Genius  than  Shakespeare  had  been.  His  portrait  of 
these  two  men,  side  by  side,  was  given  to  the  world 
later,  (in  1867,)  in  those  remarkable  verses  called 
"  Solution,"  in  which  he  guesses  the  riddle  of  the 
Muse  who  asks, — 

"  Have  you  eyes  to  find  the  five 
Which  five  hundred  did  survive  ? " 

Yes,  says  Emerson,  the  five  great  writers  are  Homer, 
Dante,  Shakespeare,  Swedenborg,  and  Goethe ;  and 
thus  he  portrays  the  English  and  the  German  poet :  — 

"  Seethed  in  mists  of  Penmanmaur, 
Taught  by  Plinlimmon's  Druid  power, 
England's  genius  filled  all  measure 
Of  heart  and  soul,  of  strength  and  pleasure. 
Gave  to  the  mind  its  emperor, 
And  life  was  larger  than  before  ; 


172  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

Nor  sequent  centuries  could  hit 
Orbit  and  sum  of  Shakespeare's  wit. 
The  men  who  lived  with  him  became 
Poets,  for  the  air  was  fame. 


"In  newer  days  of  war  and  trade, 
Romance  forgot  and  faith  decayed, 
When  Science  armed  and  guided  war, 
And  clerks  the  Janus-gates  unbar,  — 
When  France,  where  poet  never  grew, 
Halved  and  dealt  the  globe  anew,  — 
Goethe,  raised  o'er  joy  and  strife, 
Drew  the  firm  lines  of  Fate  and  Life, 
And  brought  Olympian  M'isdom  down 
To  court  and  mart,  to  gown  and  town  ; 
Stooping,  his  finger  wrote  in  clay 
The  open  secret  of  to-day." 


Among  the  friends  of  Emerson,  while  he  was  study- 
ing Goethe,  none  was  more  intimate  than  Mr.  Alcott, 
whose  diaries  preserve  much  that  was  common  to  the 
thoudit  of  the  two  friends.  I  will  therefore  read 
from  the  diaries  of  1847  and  later  years  some  of  his 
comments  on  Goethe  as  he  read  him  from  time  to 
time.     Mr.  Alcott  writes  (date  uncertain) :  — 

"Life  is  but  a  Werther's  Sorrows  to  many,  with  an 
end  as  tragical ;  nor  can  it  be  otherwise  till  we  come 
forth  from  our  woes  to  speak  peace  to  the  wallers.  The 
chaos  about  us  is  but  the  confusion  within  us ;  first  place 
ourself,  and  all  things  then  take  place  around  us.  Hith- 
erto, for  the  most  part,  men  have  been  bad  economists 
of  life,  and  si^endthrifts  of  themselves.  Few  have  de- 
served   the   epithet    '  illustrious,'  —  and    yet    life    itself 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     173 

might  be  a  lustre  so  dazzling  that  to  have  hidden  its 
flame  were  almost  to  quench  it." 

(1847.)  "  Goethe  has  treated  the  strife  of  the  worst  for 
the  best,  in  nature,  more  cunningly  than  either  of  his  pre- 
decessors, Moses  or  the  author  of  the  ITzzian  Job.  And 
for  this  old-world  fable  he  was  better  fitted  than  any  one 
of  his  time.  He  has  an  eye  for  subtleties.  He  is  a  dis- 
cerner  of  spirits,  a  draughtsman  of  guile.  His  faith  in 
nature  was  so  entire  that  it  held  all  fine  gifts  at  his  ser- 
vice, nor  could  he,  fortified  and  equipped  as  was  his  genius, 
but  render  faithful  copies  of  what  he  so  clearly  saw  \ 
and  learned  to  portray.  *  The  demons  sat  to  him,'  and  ' 
we  have  before  us  the  world  he  knew  so  well,  and  also  the 
one  in  which  almost  all  are  conversant.  For  this  demon 
of  the  temptation  is  as  old  as  man,  and  thus  far  the  catas- 
trophe has  been  disastrous  to  individuals  in  conflict  with 
multitudes.  None  has  come  off  victorious  with  his  life  ; 
the  world-spirit,  Mephistopheles,  bribing  even  the  Faust, 
or  the  will,  proffering  the  present  delights  for  the  future 
pains  as  at  first." 

(1851.)  ''Dipped  here  and  there  into  'Faust'  (Anna 
Swanwick's  translation),  and  am  admitted  more  intimately 
than  by  Hayward's  or  Anster's  version  into  the  subtleties 
of  the  modern  Satan,  the  world-spirit  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Our  devil  has  partaken  of  the  cosmopolitan  v^ 
culture;  he,  too,  is  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman,  scarcely 
distinguishable  in  a  crowd  from  any  mortal  else,  —  his 
complexion  sallower  by  a  shade,  perhaps,  and,  if  surveyed 
closely,  some  show  of  hoofs  in  his  boots.  .  .  .  Faust's 
dealings  with  him  are  infinitely  suggestive  and  profitable, 
and  inclusive  of  the  whole  range  of  guile.     '  The  demon 


174         LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

sat  gladly,'  —  the  portrait  is  sketched  by  a  master,  and 
is  exhaustive  of  the  subject.  Goethe  knew  too  much  to 
paint  well  anything  else  ;  and  this,  his  masterpiece,  re- 
mains as  the  last  likeness,  finished  up  to  the  latest  dates. 
Yet  he  lived  too  early  to  sketch  this  Western  democratic 
shape,  some  fifty  or  more  years  later.  Apropos  of  him, 
just  now  and  here  in  this  Western  hemisphere  every- 
body is  putting  down  the  dark  Webster  as  the  latest  and 
best  devil,  concrete  and  astir  in  space  perhaps,  —  certainly 
in  these  American  parts,  —  clearly  responsible  for  the  sins 
of  cities,  North  and  South,  —  a  Satan  of  national  type  and 
symmetry.  'T  is  a  great  pity  that  Goethe  should  have 
come  too  soon.  Head,  shoulders,  all,  all  of  AYebster 
should  have  gone  into  the  picture,  and  this  legal,  logical, 
constitutional  Mephistopheles  of  the  States  had  justice 
done  him  by  his  master.  .  .  .  Perhaps  Goethe  is  the  most 
remarkable  instance  in  literature  of  an  intellect  hold- 
ing its  eye  quite  coincident  with  the  plane  of  things,  — 
endowed  likewise  with  an  aptitude  to  seize  at  the  nick  of 
time  every  aspect  of  the  demonic  forces,  as  these  emerged 
from  their  hidings  in  I^ature.  But  he  was  held,  by  con- 
sequence, to  the  mundane  plane  and  the  fatal  moment,  — 
an  intellectual  describer,  but  never  a  partaker  at  heart  of 
what  he  saw  and  sketched  so  inimitablv.  His  aloofness 
from  life  and  from  the  spirit  of  permanence ;  his  inability 
to  identify  himself  with  the  heart  and  whole  of  things, 
the  soul  of  souls ;  the  duplicity  of  his  genius,  one  may 
say,  left  him  the  sport  of  a  cunning  which  partook,  at 
once,  of  the  fate  that  drives,  and  of  the  freedom  that 
controls  life's  motions.  We  feel  that  this  eye,  mighty  as 
it  is  and  miraculous,  escapes  not  the  spell  that  holds  it 
fixedly  on  the  features  he  is  portraying.     There  is  never 


i 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     175 

the  elevation  of  lid  and  fluency  of  light,  telling  of  rap- 
tures and  of  the  world's  saints,  seen  and  felt,  —  the  sure 
sign  of  victories  won  from  nature  and  one's  self.  Goethe 
was  cunning,  but  he  was  never  wisely  wise.  Too  noble 
for  mere  prudence,  he  was  coeval  with  fate;  but  never 
magnanimous  and  Fate's  victor ;  and  as  the  Fates  made, 
so  they  slew  him  too,  but  by  incantations  soft,  siren-like, 
and  prolonged,  melodizing  his  muse,  and  intimating  (al- 
most persuading  us  the  while)  his  claim  to  a  perpetuity 
of  genius  which  was  not  theirs  to  give.  All  he  was  his 
Faust  has  taken  and  celebrates.  Faust  is  admitted 
to  heaven  as  Goethe  to  mortality,  without  the  fee  of  a 
divinity  which  alone  opens  honestly  the  gates.  So  the 
clandestine  wins  by  defeats,  from  the  beginning  of  evil  till 
its  ending  here." 


'O 


(1851.)  "There  is  adequate  justification  for  Goethe's 
treatment  of  Evil  in  his  great  poem,  about  which  so  much 
has  been  said  and  written,  —  most  of  this  quite  wide  of  its 
drift  and  province.  It  is  one  of  the  auspicious  signs  of 
these  latter  times  that  men  are  beginning  to  canvass  and 
account  for  everything  that  turns  up  in  the  world.  !Noth- 
ing  remains  unquestioned  ;  the  popular  inquiry  is,  *  Who 
are  you  ?  what  are  you  here  for  ]  Account  for  your  ex- 
istence, —  show  us,  on  penalty  of  forfeiting  it,  what  right 
you  have  to  be,  —  and  away  with  you,  if  you  cannot  do 
it  ! '  Even  the  Devil,  his  place  and  functions  in  the 
world,  are  under  discussion,  and  he  too  will  have  to 
show  what  he  is  here  for,  or  quit  forthwith.  That  is  a 
question  altogether  new,  first  raised  on  its  proper  grounds 
and  poetically  argued  by  Goethe  in  the  '  Faust.'  But 
now  the  thinkers  everywhere  are  fast  hold  of  it ;  and  it 


176  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

must  render  up  its  secret,  so  long  hidden  from  the  faith 
of  men.  Modern  judgments  seem  to  be  far  more  tolerant 
of  the  Devil  than  at  any  former  period  of  the  world  ;  his 
claims  are  fairly  admitted,  and  his  right  to  be  here  and 
take  part  in  mundane  affairs  is  unquestionable.  Toler- 
ance is  taking  place  of  the  old  prejudices,  and  it  is  be- 
coming quite  evident  that  his  presence  is  indispensable. 
The  most  enlightened  minds  go  still  further,  entering 
fearlesslv  into  the  darker  counsels  of  Providence,  and  re- 
lieving  the  old  superstitions  by  some  sensible  and  even 
religious  reasons  for  his  existence  and  place  in  nature. 
Say  what  we  will  to  the  contrary,  —  and  it  is  creditable  to 
the  heart  of  man  that  it  does  doubt  the  final  necessity  of 
his  existence  and  functions,  and  proves  these  only  tran- 
sient and  mediatorial,  —  the  Devil  is  felt  to  be  avast  ben- 
efit to  the  present  multitude,  who  could  not  get  on  at  all 
without  him.  The  Lord  needs  and  so  suffers  an  agent 
for  the  administrative  ends  of  mortality,  —  a  whipper 
in  and  secretary.  The  Devil  is  a  friend  in  the  guise  of 
an  enemy.  We  need  him  to  measure  our  strength  and 
weakness,  to  prove  our  virtue.  Life,  for  the  most  part, 
is  a  contest,  a  devil's  duel,  with  seconds  few  or  many 
to  provoke  and  stand  sponsor  for  us,  to  each  according 
to  his  mettle  and  provocation.  An  imp  or  two,  if  no 
more,  is  pitted  against  every  one  of  us,  —  is  one  of  us, 
if  we  knew  it.  To  some  there  are  seven  of  them,  we 
read,  and  our  merits  and  demerits  are  measured  pre- 
cisely by  our  management  of  the  enemy,  whether  one 
or  many." 

In  these  remarks  of  Mr.  Alcott  reference  is  con- 
stantly made  to  that  dramatic  poem  of  Goethe's  which 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.      177 

he  had  just  been  reading,  "  Faust,"  in  which  the  Sa- 
tanic element  is  shown  as  constantly  present  in  a 
modern  and  realistic  guise.  Shakespeare,  except  in 
his  "  Othello,"  has  hardly  treated  this  theme  at  all ; 
nor  is  there  much  common  ground  in  the  subjects 
chosen  by  these  two  great  poets.  Goethe  was  above 
all  things  wise,  and  in  nothing  does  his  wisdom  ap- 
pear more  striking  than  in  his  estimate  of  Shake- 
speare as  far  above  himself,  and  in  his  fixed  resolve 
not  to  imitate  one  so  unlike.  He  might  almost 
have  used  in  this  connection  the  pregnant  query  of 
Emerson,  "  Why  should  I  forego  my  own  excellence 
to  come  short  of  Shakespeare's  ? "  He  had  gifts  of  his 
own,  many  and  great  ones,  —  but  not  those  of  Shake- 
speare, whose  nature  was  in  so  many  points  the  op- 
posite of  his  own.  Ben  Jonson  could  not  measure 
Shakespeare,  but  he  saw  him,  and  in  some  particulars 
has  well  described  him,  in  terms  that  could  never  be 
applied  to  Goethe  :  — 

"  The  players  have  often  mentioned  it  as  an  honor  to 
Shakespeare,"  says  Jonson  in  his  Discoveries,  "that  he 
never  blotted  out  a  line.  My  answer  hath  been,  Would 
he  had  blotted  a  thousand  !  which  they  thought  a  malevo- 
lent speech,  who  chose  that  circumstance  to  commend 
their  friend  by,  wherein  he  most  faulted.  He  was  indeed 
honest,  and  of  an  open  and  free  nature  ;  had  an  excellent 
fantasy,  brave  notions,  and  gentle  expressions ;  wherein 
he  flowed  with  that  facility,  that  sometimes  it  was  neces- 
sary he  should  be  stopped.  His  wit  was  in  his  own 
power  :  would  the  rule  of  it  had  been  so  too." 

12 


178  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

It  could  never  be  said  of  Goethe  that  he  had  not 
the  rule  of  his  own  wit  in  his  own  power;  for  no 
man  of  genius  was  ever  so  deliberate  and  methodical. 
Jonson  adds,  —  with  that  tone  of  patronage  which  the 
intervening  centuries  have  made  so  amusing  to  us,  — 
"  But  Shakespeare  redeemed  his  vices  with  his  vir- 
tues. There  was  ever  more  in  him  to  be  praised  than 
to  be  pardoned."  This  mild  encomium  is  increasingly 
true  of  Goethe,  as  we  witlidraw  more  and  more  from 
the  immediate  conditions  of  his  life,  and  judge  him  by 
the  standards  of  genius  and  of  benefit  to  mankind^. 
Tested  by  these,  Goethe  must  be  greatly  praised, 
and  his  influence  on  English  literature,  whether  in- 

\  direct  or  direct,  has  been  every  way  salutary.     For 

'  Goethe,  even  w^here  he  is  pedantic,  is  profound  ;  wher- 
ever he  deals  in  small  and  trivial  concerns,  there  is 
something  just  and  wholesome  in  his  method,  and 

\  though  he  may  check  and  discountenance  spontaneity, 
this  can  do  little  harm  to  our  literature,  which  is 
spontaneous  rather  than  profound,  except  in  those 
rare  examples  like  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  and  Words- 

\worth,  where  it  is  both  profound  and  spontaneous. 

I  do  not  find  that  Goethe  had  any  knowledge  of 
Chaucer  ;  yet  of  all  English  authors  this  ancient 
poet  was  the  nearest  to  Goethe's  serene  and  tolerant 
temper,  and  he  rose  too,  as  Goethe  did  in  Germany, 
from  a  dead  level  of  mediocrity  in  his  own  age,  to 
the  very  heights  of  humor  and  insight.  There  is  a 
just  judgment  on  this  good  old  poet  by  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney which  deserves  to  be  quoted,  —  written  in  1581, 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.      179 

and  found  in  his  "  Defence  of  Poesy."  "  Chancer," 
says  Sidney,  "undoubtedly  did  excellently  in  his 
Troilus  and  Cressida ;  of  whom,  truly,  I  know  not 
whether  to  marvel  more,  either  that  he,  in  that  mistyl 
time,  could  see  so  clearly,  or  that  we,  in  this  clear/ 
age,  go  so  stumblingly  after  him." 

One  was  soon  to  come  who  would  no  longer  stum- 
ble in  following  Chaucer,  but  would  overtake  and 
pass  him  by,  so  that  even  Shakespeare's  contem- 
poraries would  have  no  doubt  what  his  rank  was. 
An  obscure  poet  of  that  period,  of  whom  we  know 
almost  as  little  as  of  Shakespeare  himself,  William 
Basse  by  name,  commemorated  Shakespeare's  death 
in  1616  by  this  elegy,  which  is  one  of  the  best,  though 
seldom  quoted :  — 

*'  Eenowned  Spenser,  lie  a  thought  more  nigh 
To  learned  Chaucer  ;  and,  rare  Beaumont,  lie 
A  little  nearer  Spenser,  to  make  room 
For  Shakespeare  in  your  threefold,  fourfold  tomb. 
But  if  precedency  in  death  doth  bar 
A  fourth  place  in  your  sacred  sepulchre, 
Under  this  sable  marble  of  thine  own, 
Sleep,  rare  tragedian,  Shakespeare  !  sleep  alone  : 
Thy  unmolested  peace  in  unshared  cave 
Possess  as  lord,  not  tenant  of  thy  grave. 
That  unto  us  and  others  it  may  be 
Honor  hereafter  to  be  laid  by  thee." 

Here  the  elegist  recognizes,  what  time  has  fully 
attested,  that  Shakespeare  is  the  lord  paramount  bf 
English  literature,  holding  a  rank  higher  than  Beau- 
mont's, or  Spenser's,  or  Chaucer's.  A  similar  rank 
must  be  given,  and  has  long  been  joyfully  conceded. 


180  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

to  Goethe,  among  German  writers.  I  do  not  agree 
with  Dr.  Bartol  in  the  comparison  which  he  drew 
between  Schiller  and  Goethe,  so  disparaging  to  the 
former ;  but  it  is  in  accord  with  that  severe  Scripture 
which  says,  "To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and 
from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away."  In  the 
higher  meaning  of  poetic  greatness,  Schiller  "  hath 
not,"  and  therefore  must  surrender  some  part  of  his 
recent  or  present  renown  to  the  more  masculine  and 
original  Goethe.  In  one  respect,  however,  and  an 
important  one,  he  will  always  be  superior  to  his 
friend,  —  in  his  recognition  of  that  wholesome  sexual 
morality  which  Goethe  at  all  times  considered  too 
lightly,  and  in  his  youth  and  middle  life  so  habitu- 
ally transgressed.  It  will  be  long  before  English  and 
American  literature  becomes  accustomed  to  the  tone  of 
Goethe  on  this  subject,  —  a  coarse  and  worldly  habit 
of  mind,  which  came  to  him  partly  by  nature,  and 
partly  from  the  Trench,  Latin,  and  Greek  books  which 
he  read  in  his  youth  far  more  than  he  read  the  better 
Eno-lish  or  German  authors.  Indeed,  there  were  few 
good  German  authors  before  Goethe  and  accessible 
to  him;  while  Ovid  and  Catullus  and  Martial  and 
the  Greek  poets,  were  open  to  him,  and  the  amusing 
literature  of  France  was  in  every  German  house- 
hold where  books  were  read  at  all.  Goethe  brings  it 
almost  as  an  accusation  against  Herder  at  Strassburg, 
that  he  made  him  think  less  favorably  of  Ovid  than 
Goethe  had  been  accustomed;  but  the  "Eomau  Ele- 
gies," written  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight,  show  that  Ovid 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.      181 

was  then  his  model  much  more  than  Herder.  He  had 
studied  the  more  profound  classical  poets  with  profit, 
and  his  most  perfect  drama,  so  far  as  form  and  lan- 
guage go,  —  the  "  Iphigenia  in  Tauris,"  —  is  the  best 
result  of  this  part  of  his  education.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  find  in  English  literature  so  vivid  a 
reproduction  of  the  antique  spirit,  reinforced  by  the 
veracity  of  the  Teuton,  as  this  drama  exhibits.  Mil- 
ton's "  Samson,"  which  in  some  points  may  be  com- 
pared with  it,  is  so  strongly  Hebraized  that  it  little 
resembles  in  spirit  the  Greek  dramas  on  which  its 
form  was  modelled ;  while  the  "  Prometheus  "  of  Shel- 
ley, the  "Atalanta"  of  Swinburne,  and  the  pseudo- 
classical  poems  of  Landor  and  of  Browning,  almost 
wholly  lack  the  calm  dignity  of  Goethe's  "  Iphigenia." 
As  those  who  have  preceded  me  have  made  little  men-  ^ 
tion  of  this  drama,  I  will  quote  a  single  passage  in 
the  earliest  American  translation,  that  of  Dr.  Froth- 
ingham  of  Boston,  made  some  fifty  years  ago^when  (. 
Goethe  was  almost  an  unknown  name  in  America. 

SONG  OF  THE  PARC^  IN   "IPHIGENIA." 

Iphigenia  {soliloquizing). 

"Within  my  ears  resounds  that  ancient  song,  — 

Forgotten  was  it,  and  forgotten  gladlj"-, — 

Song  of  the  Parcre,  which  they  shuddering  sang 

"When  Tantalus  fell  from  his  golden  seat. 

They  suffered  with  their  noble  friend,  —  indignant 

Their  bosom  was,  and  terrible  their  song. 

To  me  and  to  my  sisters  in  our  youth 

The  nurse  would  sing  it,  —  and  I  marked  it  well. 


182  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 


THE   SONG. 

•'  The  gods  be  your  terror, 
Ye  children  of  men  ! 
They  hold  the  dominion 
In  hands  everlasting, 
All  free  to  exert  it 
As  listeth  their  will. 

"  Let  him  fear  them  doubly 
Whome'er  they  Ve  exalted! 
On  crags  and  on  cloud-piles 
The  altars  are  planted 
Around  the  gold  tables. 

"  Dissension  arises; 
Then  tumble  the  feasters 
Keviled  and  dishonored 
In  gulfs  of  deep  midnight; 
And  look  ever  vainly 
In  fetters  of  darkness 
For  judgment  that 's  just. 

"  But  They  remain  seated 
At  feasts  never  failing 
Around  the  gold  tables. 
They  stride  at  a  footstep 
From  mountain  to  mountain; 
Through  jaws  of  abysses 
Steams  toward  them  the  breathing 
Of  suffocate  Titans 
Like  offerings  of  incense,  — 
A  light-rising  vapor. 

"  They  turn  — the  proud  masters  — 
From  whole  generations 
The  eye  of  their  blessing, — 
Nor  will  in  the  children 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.      183 

The  once  well-beloved 
Still  eloquent  features 
Of  ancestors  see." 

So  sang  the  dark  sisters  ! 
The  old  exile  heareth 
That  terrible  music 
In  caverns  of  darkness, — 
Eemembereth  his  children, 
And  shaketh  his  head. 

The  Greek  doctrine  of  divine  vengeance  and  of 
irresistible  destiny  here  set  forth,  (but  which  is  beau- 
tifully softened  in  the  play  by  the  devotion  and  truth- 
fulness of  Iphigenia,)  has  scarcely  found  an  entrance 
into  English  literature,  where  tragedy  assumes  a  char- 
acter more  personal.  The  deepest  sufferings  of  Shake- 
speare's heroes  grow  out  of  their  own  acts,  and~are 
not  the  result  of  foreordained  or  inherited  guilt,  as  we 
may  see  in  "  King  Lear  "  and  "  Othello."  Goethe  also 
gives  this  personal  turn  to  all  the  tragedy  which  he 
brings  forward  ;/bur'liisr  *^rphigenia,""  with  its  deep  "^ 
realization  of  the  antique  tragic  motives,  may  serve 
as  a  connecting  link  between  ancient  and  modern 
tragedy.  And  so  strong  in  his  mind  was  the  ancient 
form  of  presentation,  that  he  adopted  it  to  some  extent 
in  his  next  important  work,  his  "  Tasso,"  — which  was 
mainly  written  in  Rome,  in  1786-88,  as  the  "Iphi- 
genia "  was  finished  and  privately  brought  out  there. 
His  "  Ecjmont,"  on  the  other  hand,  the  most  dramatic 
of  his  plays,  but  far  from  the  best,  has  nothing  of  the 
antique  about  it ;  and  still  less  has  the  first  part  of 


184  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

"  Faust,"  which,  though  dramatic  in  form,  is  rather  a 
succession  of  declamations,  spectacles,  and  songs,  than 
a  drama,  strictly  speaking.  This  fits  it  for  operatic 
representation,  in  which  it  is  most  successfully  and 
constantly  given  to  the  public.  In  itself,  as  a  closet 
drama,  or  what  Mr.  Snider  calls  a  "  literary  Bible,"  it 
is  extremely  foreign  to  the  English  and  American 
mind,  and  there  is  nothing  really  akin  to  it  in  our 
literature,  notwithstanding  Marlowe's  "  Dr.  Faustus  " 
and  the  octogenarian  Philip  Bailey's  "Festus,"  — 
which  was  "  Faust "  emasculated,  trimmed  and  scented 
and  sent  forth  on  a  harmless  round  among  the  circu- 
lating libraries,  forty  years  ago. 

Mr.  Snider  has  so  well  set  forth  the  origin  and 
spirit  of  the  Faust  legend,  and  this  exposition  has 
been  so  well  supplemented  by  Mr.  Davidson,  that  I 
need  only  call  attention  to  the  manner  in  which  it 
burst  forth  in  English  literature,  —  a  single  flash  and 
explosion  of  flame  and  smoke  from  the  Titanic  cave 
of  Christopher  Marlowe's  genius.  This  man — who, 
if  he  had  lived,  might  have  disputed  Shakespeare's 
pre-eminence  in  dramatic  poetry,  as  he  was  in  fact 
Shakespeare's  teacher  and  coadjutor  during  their  hot 
youth  in  London  —  seems  to  have  caught  at  the 
Faust  myth  almost  as  soon  as  it  appeared  anywhere 
in  Europe  in  a  printed  form  —  though  it  had  circu- 
lated from  mouth  to  mouth  at  universities  and  among 
the  people  for  more  than  half  a  century,  when,  in 
1587,  there  appeared  at  Frankfort  the  "History  of 
Dr.  Johann  Faust,  the  far-famed  [weitbeschreiter]  Sor- 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     185 

cerer  and  Black- Artist  [ScJitvarzkilnstler]."  From 
an  English  translation  of  this  book,  made  in  1592, 
Marlowe  is  supposed  to  have  taken  his  play,  "The 
Tragical  History  of  Dr.  Faustus,"  which  must  have 
been  written  in  1592-93,  for  in  June,  1593,  Marlowe 
was  killed  in  a  tavern  brawl.  This  fact  and  Mar- 
lowe's own  character,  which  was  that  of  an  unbe- 
liever and  sensualist,  gives  a  peculiar  significance  to 
his  version  of  the  Faust  myth,  which  Goethe  had 
thoughts  of  translating  into  German.  Crabbe  Eob- 
inson,  when  visiting  Goethe  in  1829,  read  to  the  old 
poet  for  the  first  time  Milton's  "  Samson,"  and  men- 
tioned Marlowe's  "Dr.  Faustus."  ^Goethe  did  not 
admire  Milton  so  much  as  Byron,  but  of  Marlowe's 
play  he  said,  bursting  out  into  an  exclamation  of 
_j)raise,  "  How  greatly  is  it  all  planned  ! "  ^  The  Diary 
of  Crabbe  Ptobinson,  and  the  remarks  and  letters  of 
Goethe  after  the  visits  of  this  indefatigable  English- 
man in  1829,  give  some  anecdotes  and  remarks 
which  will  show  how  imperfect  was  Goethe's  knowl- 
edge of  English  authors.     Eobinson  says  :  — 

"  I  took  an  opportunity  to  mention  Milton,  and  found 
Goethe  unacquainted  with  '  Samson  Agonistes.'  I  read 
to  him  the  first  part,  to  the  end  of  the  scene  with  Da- 
lila.     He  fully  conceived  the  spirit  of  it,  though  he  did 

1  It  is  curious  that  Meissner  in  his  recent  book,  ' '  English  Actors 
of  Shakespeare's  Time  in  Austria,"  not  only  proves  that  Marlowe's 
"  Dr.  Faustus  "  in  a  German  version  was  played  at  Griitz  in  1608, 
but  offers  evidence  to  show  that  it  was  played  in  Frankfort  in  the 
autumn  of  1592. 


186  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

not  praise  Milton  with  the  warmth  with  which  he  eulo- 
gized Byron,  of  whom  he  said  that  ^  the  like^would  never, 
come  again  ;  he  was  inimitable.'     Even  Ariosto  was  not  so 
'daring~as~Byron  in  the  'Vision  of  Judgment.'     Goethe 
preferred  to  all  the  other  serious  poems   of  Byron  the 
'  Heaven  and   Earth,'  though   it   seemed   almost   satire 
when  he  exclaimed,  'A  bishop  might   have   written  it.' 
He  added  :  '  Byron  should  have  lived  to  execute  his  voca- 
tion, —  to  dramatize  the  Old  Testament.     What  a  subject 
iinder  his  hands  would  the  Tower  of  Babel  have  been  ! 
Byron  was  indebted  for  the  profound  views  he  took  of 
the  Bible  to  the  ennui  he  suffered  from  it  at  school.'  .   .   , 
It  was  with  reference  to  the  poems  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment that  Goethe  praised  the  views  which  Byron  took  of 
Nature  ;  they  were  equally  profound  and  poetical.     '  He 
had  not,  like  me,  devoted  a  long  life  to  the   study  of 
Nature,   and  yet  in  all  his  works  I  found  but  two  or 
three  passages  I  could  have  wished  to  alter.' "     Eobinson 
objected   to   the    then   common    comparison  of  Manfred 
to    Faust,    and   said,    "Faust   had   nothing   left  but  to 
sell  his  soul  to  the  Devil,  when   he  had  exhausted  all 
the  resources  of  science  in  vain  ;  but  Manfred's  was  a 
poor  reason, — his  passion  for  Astarte."     Goethe  smiled 
and  said,  "  That  is  true."     But  then  he  fell  back  on  the 
indomitable  spirit  of  Manfred.     Even  at  the  last  he  was 
not  conquered.     And  the  impudence  of  Byron's  satire  he 
felt  and  enjoyed.     Robinson  pointed  out  "  The  Deformed 
Transformed "  as   really    an  imitation  of   "  Faust,"    and 
Goethe  especially  praised  that  piece.     Byron's  verses  on 
George  IV.,  he  said,  were  the  sublime  of  hatred. 

Returning  to  Milton,  Goethe  said  to  Robinson,  as  after- 
wards to  Zelter,  "  Samson's  confession  of  his  guilt  is  in  a 


GOETHE  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.      187 

better  spirit  than  anything  in  Byron.  There  is  fine  logic 
in  all  the  speeches.  Dalila's  vindication  of  herself  is 
capital ;  he  has  pnt  her  in  the  right."  To  one  of  Sam- 
son's speeches  he  cried  out,  "  0  the  parson  !  "  He  thanked 
Robinson  for  making  him  acquainted  with  the  "  Samson," 
saying,  "  It  gives  me  a  higher  opinion  of  Milton  than  I 
had  before  ;  it  lets  me  more  into  the  nature  of  his  inind 
than  any  other  of  his  works."  To  Zelter  he  wrote  that 
"  in  Samson  we  acquire  knowledge  of  a  predecessor  of 
Lord  Byron  who  is  as  grand  and  comprehensive  as  Byron 
himself;  but  then  the  successor  is  as  vast  and  wildly 
varied  as  the  other  appears  simple  and  stately."  Again 
he  said,  that  "  he  never  before  met  with  so  perfect  an 
imitation  of  the  antique  in  style  and  spirit "  as  in  the 
"  Samson."  He  told  Eobinson  that  Schiller's  rendering 
of  the  witch-scenes  in  Macbeth  was  "detestable,"  —  "but 
that  was  his  way.  You  must  let  every  man  have  his 
own  character.." 

I  do  not  find.  _tliat  Goethe  had  mucli  to  say  of 
Xandor,  the  man  of  England  who  most  resembled 
him  in  some  traits,  and  who  valued  liiglily  and  early, 
for  an  Englishman,  the  greatness  of  Goethe.  In 
1819,  Southey  wrote  to  Landor  that  a  contributor 
to  the  county  paper  had  spoken  of  Landor  in  "  The 
Westmoreland  Gazette "  as  the  English  poet  who 
most  resembled  Goethe  ;  adding,  "  I  do  not  know 
enough  of  Goethe  to  judge  how  far  this  assertion 
may  be  right."  Considering  that  Southey  was  the 
poet-laureate  of  England,  and  Goethe  then  seventy 
years  old,  the  remark  indicates  how  far  apart  were 


188  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

English  and  German  literature  when  Carlyle  began 
to  write.  Landor  did  not  read  the  "  Iphigenia  "  till 
after  Goethe's  death,  when  he  praised  and  criticised 
it.  In  1837  he  said  of  Goethe  :  "  He  was  the  wisest 
man  of  his  time,  as  he  was  the  most  poetical.  Drops 
hang  from  every  work  of  Goethe's  (that  I  have  seen) 
of  the  very  purest  brightness,  such  as  will  never  dry 
up  nor  fall.  I  admire  much  of  his  poetry  and  all  his 
prose." 

It  is  a  pity  that  these  two  men  could  not  have 
known  each  other,  living  as  they  did  for  half  a  cen- 
tury within  a  few  hundred  miles,  and  both  engaged 
in  the  lonely  pursuits  of  thought  and  imagination. 
They  were  not  too  much  alike  to  have  quarrelled,  — 
except  as  Landor  quarrelled  with  everybody,  —  while 
Goethe  would  have  met  that  pettish  trait  by  his 
wise  habit  of  quarrelling  Mdth  nobody.  .  The  English- 
man, true  to  his  national  character,  had  more  mag- 
nanimity, but  ill-regulated ;  the  German  had  more 
wisdom,  and  deserved  better  than  Landor  that  clos- 
ing epigram  which  the  Englishman  wrote  on  him- 
self,—  styling  it  "The  Dying  Speech  of  an  Old 
Philosopher  "  :  — 

"  I  strove  witli  none,  for  none  was  worth  my  strife  ; 
Nature  I  loved,  and  next  to  Nature  Art. 
I  warmed  both,  hands  against  tlie  fire  of  life,  — 
It  sinks,  and  I  am  ready  to  depart." 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  189 


VII. 

GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT. 

By  WILLIAM  OEDWAY  PARTRIDGE. 

We  may  affirm  without  arrogance  that  we  of  the 
present  day  are  better  informed  with  regard  to  the 
highest  artistic  effects  of  the  drama  and  the  use  of 
technical  methods  than  were  Lessing,  Schiller,  and 
Goethe.     These  are  the  words  of  Gustav  Freitag,  a 
German  writer  standing  in  all  but  the  first  rank  of 
literary  men  and  dramatists,  and  in  the  very  foremost 
rank  of  dramatic  critics.     In  writing  a  criticism  upon 
the  work  of  a  man  of  Goethe's  eminence,  some  part 
of  which,  at  least,  must  be  unfavorable,  one  is  fain  to 
take  refuge  under  the  shield  of  so  great  a  critic,  and 
thus  avoid   all   possible   charge   of  arrogance.     Not 
only  as  a  shield,  however,  have  I  quoted  the  above 
passage;   it  is  of  great  significance  as  pointing  out 
the   two    distinguishing    characteristics   of  the   suc- 
cessful playwright :     (1.)  A  clear  conception  of  high- 
est artistic  effects  ;    (2.)  The  power  to  apply  the  best 
technical  methods  for  the  production  of  these. 

We  must  here  make  a  careful  distinction  between 
a  playwright  and  a  playwriter.     And  in  the  present 


190  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

paper  we  wish  especially  to  insist  upon  this  dis- 
tinction. It  is  not  our  intention  to  criticise  Goethe 
as  a  writer  of  plays,  or  his  plays  as  mere  literary 
productions,  or  wliat  are  called  closet  dramas ;  but  to 
consider  him  strictly  as  a  playwright,  and  his  plays  as 
productions  intended  for  representation  on  the  stage. 
The  dramatic  value  of  a  play  is  its  effectiveness  upon 
the  stage.  Whatever  other  merits  a  play  may  have, 
psychological,  philosophical,  or  ethical,  if  it  is  not 
effective  upon  the  stage,  it  lacks  the  first  essential  of 
a  good  drama.  A  psychological,  philosophical,  or  etlii- 
cal  discussion  may  be  cast  in  the  form  of  dialogue,  or 
even  of  a  drama ;  as,  for  example,  the  Dialogues  of 
Plato,  but  these  are  not  dramas  in  the  proper  sense. 
In  order  to  arrive  at  clearness  in  this  matter,  we 
must  first  inquire  what  kind  of  effectiveness  we  have 
a  right  to  expect  from  the  drama,  and,  secondly, 
through  what  technical  methods  this  effectiveness 
may  be  best  attained.  Of  course  we  must  not  expect 
from  the  drama  every  kind  of  effectiveness,  as,  for 
instance,  the  effect  of  a  philosophical  argument,  ser- 
mon, or  oratorio ;  we  must  not  look  for  the  effect 
produced  by  an  intoxicating  draught  as  ISTiagara. 

First,  then,  let  us  consider  what  constitutes  dra- 
matic effectiveness.  The  question  might  be  answered 
by  one  word,  viz.  the  term  "  drama,"  which  properly 
means  action,  so  that  a  drama  without  action  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms.  The  essential  element,  then, 
in  dramatic  effectiveness  is  action.  It  must,  however, 
be  action  of  a  peculiar  kind,  —  in  a  word,  it  must 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  191 

be  motivated  action,  and  the  motive  must  at  once  be 
rational  and  apparent  to  the  spectators.  This  Goe- 
the himself  believed,  and  has  admirably  expressed 
in  words  put  into  tlie  mouth  of  Wilhelm  Meister 
with  regard  to  Sliakespeare's  characters :  "  These 
very  mysterious  and  composite  creatures  of  nature 
act  before  us  in  his  plays,  as  if  they  were  clocks  with 
cases  and  dial-plates  of  crystal ;  they  show  in  their 
determination  the  lapse  of  the  hours,  and  at  the 
same  time  we  can  recognize  the  wheels  and  springs 
that   drive   them." 

The  drama,  tlien,  in  its  true  sense,  is  an  action,  a 
rounded  and  complete  action,  whose  various  parts 
or  moments  are  evolved  and  connected  by  intelligible 
motives. 

These  motives  may  have  two  sources,  that  is,  they 
may  be  either  in  the  characters  or  in  the  exigencies 
of  the  action  itself.  For  example,  the  fortunate  ter- 
mination of  "  Iphigenie  "  finds  its  motive  in  the  per- 
fect sincerity  of  Iphigenie's  character.  In  "  Egmont " 
also,  as  well  as  in  "  Gotz,"  the  hero's  fate  is  plainly 
due  to  defects  in  his  own  character.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  task  imposed  upon  Hamlet  of  putting  his 
uncle  to  death  plairdy  arises  from  the  exigency  of 
circumstances, —  the  moral  demands  of  his  time, — 
and  can  in  no  wise  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  Hamlet's 
character.  It  may  here  be  remarked,  that  the  ancient 
differs  from  the  modern  drama,  in  the  source  from 
which  it  mainly  draws  its  motives.  The  ancient 
dramatists  looked   for  their   motives   chiefly  in  the 


192  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

exigences  of  circumstances,  which  to  them  were  bj- 
nonymous  with  necessity,  destiny,  or  Fate,  whence  the 
majority  of  ancient  plays  are  Fate-dramas,  Modern 
dramatists,  on  the  other  hand,  —  and  pre-eminently 
Goethe,  —  seek  their  motives  chiefly  in  character, 
whence  most  good  modern  plays  are,  to  a  very  large 
extent,  character-dramas.  This  difference  accounts, 
in  some  measure,  for  the  superior  effectiveness  of  the 
ancient  drama,  inasmuch  as  motives  originating  in 
external  circumstances  are  far  more  easy  to  represent 
than  those  drawn  from  character.  Probahly  the 
highest  type  of  drama  is  that  in  which  the  motives 
are  drawn  equally  from  circumstances  (not  necessa- 
rily conceived  as  Fate)  and  from  character.  This  bal- 
ance of  motives  we  find  in  Shakespeare's  best  plays, 
for  example,  "  Hamlet "  and  "  Eomeo  and  Juliet."  In 
a  word,  we  may  say  that  the  prime  and  fundamental 
condition  of  dramatic  effect,  as  such,  is  perfect  mo- 
tivation. A  series  of  brilliant  scenes,  however 
effective  otherwise,  are  not  dramatic.  In  this  the 
drama  differs  from  history,  that  in  the  former  the 
events  are  connected  by  perfect  motivation ;  in 
the  latter,  merely  by  time  and  imperfect,  often  non- 
apparent  motivation. 

AlthouG:h  motivation  is  the  first  essential  of  dra- 
matic  effect,  it  is  not,  by  itself  alone,  sufficient  to  in- 
sure that  effect.  Other  and  secondary  conditions  are 
requisite.  In  the  first  place,  the  motives  must  be  of 
a  particular  kind,  since  all  motives  are  not  dramatic 
motives.     True  dramatic  motives  are  such  as  an  au- 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  193 

dience  feel  to  be  human  and  rational,  —  such  as  men 
like  themselves  in  similar  circumstances  would  act 
upon.  Consequently,  all  motives  that  affect  only  ec- 
centric or  exceptionally  good  or  wicked  characters, 
must  be  used  sparingly,  if  at  all.  The  same  is  true  of 
all  motives  of  a  miraculous,  revolting,  or  fantastic  kind. 
What  is  regarded  as  miraculous,  revolting,  or  fantastic, 
is  not  the  same  in  all  ages  or  among  all  peoples ;  for 
which  reason  every  dramatist  must  keep  very  stead- 
ily in  view  his  own  time  and  public.  For  example, 
some  things  that  the  Greeks  forbade  to  be  represented 
on  the  stage  as  revolting,  such  as  assassination,  mur- 
der, and  suicide,  we  permit,  and  applaud.  The  stab- 
bing of  Csesar,  the  suicide  of  Brutus,  the  death  of 
Eomeo  and  Juliet,  of  Gretchen,  etc.,  are  examples  of 
this. 

In  the  second  place,  dramatic  motives,  in  order  to 
be  effective,  must  produce  certain  results. 

(1)  They  must  produce  passion  and  action,  and  not 
merely  dialogue,  however  philosophical,  beautiful,  or 
moral  it  mav  be. 

(2)  The  motivated  action  must  be  so  arranged  and 
rounded  as  to  arouse  a  steadily  increasing  sympathy, 
expectation,  and  anxiety — or,  as  Aristotle  puts  it, 
pity  and  fear  —  on  the  part  of  the  audience,  and  then 
to  satisfy  these  emotions. 

(3)  The  ultimate  result  of  the  whole  action  must 
be  to  solemnize  the  mind  by  revealing  to  it  the  work- 
ings of  the  human  heart  and  the  moral  order  of  the 
universe,  and  to  send   an  audience   forth  refreshed, 

13 


194  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

strengthened,  and  inspired  for  the  duties  of  life,  — 
in  a  word,  it  must  result  in  what  Aristotle  calls 
Purification. 

Having  thus  stated,  in  general  terms,  the  true  ar- 
tistic effect  of  the  drama,  we  come  next  to  consider 
by  what  technical  methods  these  results  are  to  be 
obtained.  Inasmuch  as  the  first  condition  of  artistic 
effectiveness  in  the  drama  is  complete  and  thorough 
motivation,  our  first  inquiry  must  relate  to  the  mode 
in  which  this  may  be  reached.  It  is  evident  that 
this  will  in  large  measure  depend  upon  the  "choice  of 
subject,  the  fact  being  that  it  is  much  easier  to  find 
motives  for  certain  lines  of  action  than  for  others. 
Indeed,  however  this  choice  may  be  influenced  by 
fashion  or  by  the  intellectual  and  aesthetic  idiosyncra- 
sies of  the  author,  the  subject  must  always  be  one 
capable  of  being  transformed  into  a  dramatic  idea,  — 
that  unital  and  initial  germ  from  which  the  whole 
drama  is  developed.  There  is  hardly  any  point  in 
which  the  genius  of  an  artist  is  more  apparent,  than 
in  this  ability  to  see  what  subjects  are  capable  of  be- 
ing permeated  with  the  living,  causative,  formative 
dramatic  idea. 

And  this  is  especially  true  of  the  dramatist.  The 
question  of  what  is  really  dramatic  has  been  much 
agitated,  but  one  may  affirm  that  dramatic,  and  more 
especially  tragic  subjects,  are  those  containing  the 
elements  of  some  great  moral  collision,  taking  place 
in  a  sphere  of  life  in  which  the  characters  nmst  be 
supposed  capable  of  expressing  this  collision  in  speech 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  195 

and  action.  This  collision  itself  must  be  of  a  kind 
to  give  ample  opportunity  for  the  display  of  passion 
and  action.  This  regulation  effectively  excludes  all 
subjects  containing  collisions  which  are  fought  out 
within  the  breast  of  the  individual,  or  in  philosophical 
and  moral  discussion  with  others.  Moral  collisions 
that  lead  to  no  outward  action,  but  only  to  mono- 
logues or  conversations,  are  essentially  undramatic. 
It  would  follow,  of  course,  that  a  subject  could  not 
be  chosen  from  among  a  people  of  a  low  degree  of 
culture,  or  a  people  whose  lives  are  not  dramatic. 
Granting  now  that  the  subject  is  properly  chosen,  the 
conditions  specified  being  fulfilled,  the  question  arises 
how  the  subject  is  to  be  developed  so  as  to  produce 
these  dramatic  effects,  we  have  mentioned  above; 
viz.  (1.)  abundant  display  of  action  and  passion  in 
the  character ;  (2.)  the  excitement  of  a  steadily  in- 
creasing sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  audience,  and 
the  satisfaction  of  the  same ;  (3.)  the  moral  inspira- 
tion and  physical  refreshment  that  come  from  the 
clear  presentation  and  solution  of  moral  problems. 
To  exhaust  this  question  is  not  easy,  and,  in  a  brief 
lecture  like  this,  only  the  more  prominent  means  for 
producing  effectiveness  can  even  be  mentioned. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  care  must  be  taken  to  con- 
centrate interest,  and  this  can  be  done  only  by  pre- 
serving the  unity  of  action,  which  action  must  not  be 
understood  to  mean  a  single  event,  but  a  connected  se- 
ries of  events,  or,  as  Aristotle  says,  a  praxis.  In  every 
drama  the  action  must  be  strictly  one, — undivided.   It 


196  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

must  then  revolve  about  a  single  character,  or  a  single 
group  of  characters,  involved  in  the  conception  of  the 
subject.  What  is  true  of  the  drama  is  true  of  every 
other  art.  A  picture,  for  example,  must  have  a  sin- 
gle point  of  interest,  about  which  everything  else  is 
grouped.  It  follows  from  this,  that  those  accessory 
characters  and  groups  which  are  necessary  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  plot,  and  as  foils  to  the  principal 
characters,  must  be  subordinated,  and  not  receive 
any  prominence  beyond  what  they  derive  from  their 
relation  to  these  characters.  Any  attempt  to  give 
them  prominence  on  their  own  account  would  only 
distract  attention,  scatter  interest,  dilute  sympathy, 
cause  confusion,  and  diminish  effectiveness. 

We  must  here  note  that  the  unity  of  the  actions 
so  essential  to  the  effectiveness  of  a  drama,  does  not 
depend  solely  upon  the  unity  or  oneness  of  the  char- 
acters, or  central  group.  Actions  belonging  even  to  a 
single  character  do  not  necessarily  form  a  dramatic 
unity.  A  drama  is  never  a  biography,  nor  a  series  of 
adventures  or  episodes.  In  other  words,  a  mere  his- 
toric or  personal  connection  between  events  is  utterly 
different  from  that  relation  which  produces  dramatic 
unity.  A  dramatic  action,  therefore,  is  one  which  not 
only  has  its  centre  in  a  single  character,  but  must  be 
a  single  action  in  the  sense  that  all  its  parts  are  con- 
nected as  cause  and  effect,  and  every  event  must  tend 
to  advance  or  relieve  the  progress  of  the  action.  And 
not  only  so,  but  the  action  must  have  a  natural  begin- 
ning in  a  deed  or  juncture  forming  the  collision  of  the 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  197 

piece ;  and  an  ending,  in  which  the  problem  involved 
in  the  collision  is  naturally  solved.  Naturally  solved, 
I  repeat,  because  there  are  unnatural  solutions,  and 
these  are  essentially  undramatic.  A  natural  solution 
is  one  whose  elements  are  found  in  the  action  and 
characters  of  the  piece  itself.  An  unnatural  solution 
is  one  violently  introduced  from  without,  in  the 
shape  of  miracle,  chance,  or  some  catastrophe  of 
nature.  Each  of  these  is  a  Deus  ex  inachina,  or,  as 
the  Italians  say,  a  salto^mortalej  which  is  forever 
interdicted  in  art  as  nullifying  its  true  purpose. 
Other  unities  have,  at  certain  times,  been  insisted 
upon,  especially  those  of  time  and  place ;  but  these 
are  unessential,  and  have  almost  universallv  been 
discarded. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  not  only  necessary  to  con- 
centrate and  sustain  interest,  but  to  arouse  it  properly. 
And  this  can  be  done  only  by  putting  the  audience 
in  possession  of  facts  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  un- 
derstand the  nature  of  the  collision  involved,  and  the 
relation  of  the  different  characters  to  it.  This  Aris- 
totle happily  calls  the  heai<;,  or  tying  of  the  knot. 
This  must  be  done  in  the  opening  scenes  of  a  play, 
which  in  a  certain  sense  must  always  be  introductory. 
Any  attempt  to  put  the  audience  in  possession  of  the 
necessary  facts  by  means  of  a  prologue,  —  though 
favored  and  practised  by  some  dramatists,  such  as 
Euripides,  Seneca,  and  Alfieri,  —  is  inartistic,  and  be- 
speaks incapacity  on  the  part  of  the  dramatist.  A 
prologue  hardly  becomes  more  artistic  even  when  it 


198  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

takes  the  form  of  a  mere  explanatory  dialogue,  in 
no  way  advancing  the  action  of  the  play.  The  open- 
ing of  a  piece  which  puts  the  audience  in  possession 
of  the  necessary  facts  will,  by  a  good  artist,  be  so 
arranged  as  to  be  brief,  and  a  part  of  the  action  of  the 
play,  for  only  in  this  way  can  it  arouse  the  highest 
interest. 

In  the  third  place,  the  interest,  once  aroused,  must 
be  steadily  sustained  ;  which  means,  not  that  it  must 
be  kept  uniformly  at  the  same  degree  of  intensitj^, 
but  that  it  must  gradually  increase  until  it  reaches 
its  climax  and  satisfaction  in  the  solution  of  the 
piece.  In  a  word,  we  may  say  that  the  interest 
must  be  compound  interest.  At  the  same  time,  care 
must  be  taken  to  retard  the  interest  until  the  climax 
can  be  fairly  reached.  This  is  perhaps  the  most  dif- 
ficult task  imposed  upon  tlie  playwright,  inasmuch 
as  it  involves  a  profound  knowledge  of  psychology 
and  an  immense  power  of  grading  and  directing  all 
the  parts  of  his  play  to  a  single  end.  With  this  in 
view  he  must  carefully  avoid  introducing  anything, 
however  tempting,  not  bearing  directly  upon  the 
action  of  the  play,  and  also  the  placing  of  less  inter- 
esting scenes  after  more  interesting  ones ;  or  in  any 
way  introducing  mere  explanatory  matter  without 
action.  For  this  reason,  long  messages  interrupting 
the  action  of  the  play,  and  similar  things,  should  be 
avoided.  A  play  in  which  scenes  can  be  omitted 
or  transposed,  without  affecting  the  interest  of  the 
piece,  is  by  that  fact  alone  a  poor  play,  and  argues  an 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  199 

inferior  playwright.  Perhaps  the  worst  of  all  possible 
plays  is  one  consisting  of  a  series  of  scenes  in  which 
the  action  does  not  advance,  or  the  characters  are  not 
brought  into  any  different  relation  to  each  other  at 
the  end  from  that  which  tliey  occupied  at  the  begin- 
ning. Such  plays  are  the  "Hecuba"  of  Euripides, 
and  the  "  Brunhilde,"  written  some  years  ago  for  the 
actress  Janauschek. 

In  the  fourth  place,  the  interest,  having  been 
aroused  and  sustained  throughout  the  play,  must  in 
the  end  secure  complete  satisfaction.  Such  satis- 
faction we  are  wont  to  call  poetic  justice.  By  this 
we  mean  that  every  one  of  the  principal  characters 
must  at  the  conclusion  of  the  piece  meet  with  the  just 
reward  of  his  deeds  ;  thus  impressing  that  most  pro- 
found of  all  moral  truths,  often  so  dimly  visible  in 
our  actual  lives,  namely,  that  there  is  an  inexorable 
moral  law  ruling  in  the  world,  and  giving  to  each  man 
the  exact  reward  of  his  deeds.  Only  in  this  way  can 
a  play  produce  that  exhilaration  and  moral  inspira- 
tion which  are  the  ultimate  tests  of  the  value  of  a 
drama.  But  although  a  play,  like  every  true  work 
of  art,  ought  to  produce  a  moral  effect,  the  artist's 
intention  to  produce  this  effect  should  never  be  appar- 
ent. In  other  words,  a  drama  ought  not,  either  in 
whole  or  in  part,  to  be  a  sermon  or  moral  lecture. 

The  moral  effect,  on  the  contrary,  ought  to  be  ap- 
parent in  the  very  construction  and  action  of  the 
play,  and  to  be  deduced  therefrom  by  a  spontaneous 
action  under  the  influence  of  emotion  on  the  part  of 


200  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

the  audience.  We  ought  no  more  to  look  for  a  ser- 
mon in  a  play,  than  we  do  in  the  Venus  of  Melos  or 
the  Hermes  of  Praxiteles.  True  works  of  art,  like 
lofty  characters,  exercise  their  influence,  not  through 
what  they  do  or  say,  but  through  what  they  are.  As 
Schiller  puts  it,  "  There  is  nobility  even  in  the  moral 
world.  Common  natures  pay  with  what  they  do,  — 
noble  natures  with  what  they  are." 

Such  then  are  some  of  the  principal  and  essential 
conditions  of  dramatic  effectiveness  :  (1)  choice  of  sub- 
ject, noble  and  capable  of  being  developed  and  mo- 
tivated into  scenes  of  action  and  passion,  —  in  other 
words,  into  a  dramatic  unity ;  (2)  absolute  unity  and 
probability  of  action  ;  (3)  interest  artistically  enlisted, 
sustained,  and  satisfied,  at  last,  by  poetic  justice.  In 
order  to  deal  with  Goethe  as  upright  judges,  and  not 
arbitrarily  as  tyrants,  we  have  now  only  to  apply 
the  principles  laid  down,  in  all  their  rigor,  to  his  dra- 
matic productions,  —  or,  at  least,  to  such  of  them  as 
may  be  supposed  in  any  way  to  determine  his  position 
as  a  playwright. 

In  doing  so,  we  shall  deal  mainly  with  those  plays 
which  may  be  regarded  as  marking  stages  in  his 
dramatic  development,  —  "  Gotz  von  Berlichingen," 
"  Egmont,"  "  Torquato  Tasso,"  "  Iphigenie,"  and 
"  Faust."  Although  Goethe  had  previously  written 
some  smaller  pieces  for  special  occasions,  his  career 
as  a  serious  playwright  begins  with  "  Gotz  von  Ber- 
lichingen." This  play,  of  which  the  first  draft  was 
written  in  six   weeks,  in   the   year  1771,  was  con- 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  201 

ceived  under  the  influence  of  a  powerful  enthusiasm 
due  to  the  reading  of  Shakespeare.  Witli  respect  to 
the  effect  of  this  first  acquaintance  with  the  work  of 
the  English  dramatist,  Goethe  himself  says,  speaking- 
through  the  lips  of  Wilhelm  Meister  :  — 

"  I  cannot  recollect  that  any  book,  any  man,  any  inci- 
dent of  my  life,  has  produced  such  effects  on  me 

They  seem  as  if  they  were  performances  of  some  celestial 
Genius,  descending  among  men  to  make  them,  by  the 
mildest  instructions,  acquainted  with  themselves.  They 
are  no  fictions  !  you  would  think,  while  reading  them, 
you  stood  before  the  unclosed  awful  books  of  Fate,  while 
the  whirlwind  of  most  impassioned  life  was  howhng 
through  the  leaves,  and  tossing  them  fiercely  to  and  fro. 
The  strength  and  tenderness,  the  power  and  peacefulness 
of  this  man,  have  so  astonished  and  transported  me,  that 
I  long  vehemently  for  the  time  when  I  shall  have  it  in 
my  power  to  read  further." 

It  was  in  this  frame  of  mind  that  Goethe  wrote 
"  Gotz,"  drawing  his  theme  from  the  autobiography 
of  the  old  national  hero  of  the  Iron  Hand,  a  theme 
capable  of  being  treated  in  the  manner  of  Shake- 
speare. He  wrote  under  the  influence  of  an  imita- 
tive enthusiasm,  and  not  in  accordance  with  any 
theory  of  dramatic  art.  Indeed,  at  that  time  he  had 
not  arrived  at  any  such  theory.  This  fact  accounts 
in  great  measure  for  the  merits  and  the  defects  of  the 
work.  Tlie  defects  are  very  great ;  but  it  has  real 
merits,  and,  indeed,  from  a  purely  dramatic  point 
of  view,  this  piece,  though   the  earliest,  is  unques- 


202  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

tionably  the  most  popular  and  effective  of  Goethe's 
plays. 

Nor  is  this  fact  difiiciilt  to  explain.  Shakespeare's 
influence  upon  Goethe  had  been  of  a  most  healthy 
and  stimulating  kind.  It  had  roused  the  spontaneity 
of  his  genius,  which  was  naturally  great,  and  supplied 
him  with  admirable  models,  without  subjecting  him 
to  any  esthetic  rules  or  theories.  And  this  last  neg- 
ative advantage  was  perhaps  as  valuable  as  the  other 
two  positive  ones.  For  so  strong  in  all  Germans  is 
the  tendency  to  work  according  to  rules  addressed 
to  the  understanding,  —  and  so  fatal  is  this  tendeucy 
to  all  German  artists,  even  those  of  high  genius,  — 
that  Goethe  could  hardly  have  failed  to  be  injured 
in  his  work  by  any  such  restrictions. 

This  indeed,  we  shall  see,  actually  took  place  with 
much  damage  to  Goethe's  dramatic  work,  after  he 
became  interested  in  dramatic  theory.  Not  only  will 
theory  never  make  an  artist,  but  it  may  even  damage 
one,  especially  if  he  be  a  German. 

"  Gotz  von  Berlichingen,"  in  spite  of  its  popularity 
and  its  extraordinary  value  in  the  history  of  German 
literature,  will  not  stand  the  test  of  vigorous  dra- 
matic criticism.  The  subject,  indeed,  is  well  chosen, 
being  one  in  which  the  unity  of  action  might  easily 
have  been  preserved,  strict  motivation  introduced, 
and  abundant  opportunities  offered  for  scenes  of 
action  and  passion. 

But  unfortunately  Goethe  was  unable  to  permeate 
this  subject  with  a  dramatic   idea,   and   hence   the 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  203 

work  remains  a  series  of  interesting  but  disconnected 
scenes,  which  do  not  form  in  any  sense  a  dramatic 
unity.  The  interest  is  scattered  and  broken  into 
fragments,  with  neither  proper  gradation,  climax,  nor 
satisfactory  solution.  Much  crude  historical  matter, 
connected,  as  historical  matter  usually  is,  by  mere 
chronological  succession,  instead  of  dramatic  motiva- 
tion, remains  to  burden  the  play.  The  result  is,  that 
the  catastrophe  does  not  follow  necessarily  from  the 
conditions  of  the  piece,  and  leaves  the  demands  of 
poetic  justice  unsatisfied.  Gotz,  it  is  true,  is  a  tragic 
character,  and  this  for  two  reasons.  The  former  of 
these  is  his  thoughtless,  incautious,  and  fond  con- 
fidence in  Weislingen,  a  man  who  had  abundantly 
proved  himself  fit  for  a  place  in  the  lowest  circle  of 
Dante's  Inferno.  The  latter  was  his  failure  to  see 
that  his  efforts  were  directed  against  the  natural  ad- 
vance of  civilization,  and  in  favor  of  an  obsolete 
feudalism.  At  the  same  time,  these  defects  are  not 
sufficient  to  reconcile  us  to  the  hero's  dying  as  a 
coward  might,  with  a  feeling  that  his  whole  heroic 
life  had  been  worse  than  vain.  This  inartistic  end- 
ing is  the  more  to  be  regretted,  inasmuch  as  it 
might  easily  have  been  avoided.  The  fault  is  due  in 
part  to  Goethe's  following  too  closely  the  facts  of 
history,  in  defiance  of  the  aesthetic  law  which  de- 
mands poetic  justice  ;  that  is,  a  recognition  of  a  man's 
virtues  as  well  as  of  his  defects.  But  it  was  due 
perhaps  even  more  to  the  circumstance,  that,  when 
Gotz  was  written,  the  author  was  in  revolt  against 


204  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

the  German  political  system,  just  as  Schiller  was  in 
revolt  against  the  social  system  when  he  wrote  "  The 
Eobbers,"  and  wished  to  excite  popular  indignation 
against  that  system  by  making  Gotz  appear  as  a 
martyr  to  it.  This  purpose  to  excite  indignation 
must  be  set  down  as  inartistic,  as  all  tendentious 
purpose  in  art  is. 

In  spite  of  all  these  great  defects,  the  play  has  a 
certain  amount  of  confused  effectiveness,  both  in  the 
action,  and  in  the  characters.  Notwithstanding 
Gotz's  lamentable  ending,  he  and  his  little  group  of 
associates  remain  inspiring  characters ;  and  this  is  so 
true,  that  the  play  has  always,  perhaps  more  than  any 
other  of  Goethe's  works,  been  a  favorite  upon  the 
stage.  This  is  certainly  only  in  a  small  degree  due 
to  its  artistic  merits,  since  the  interest  which  it  ex- 
cites is  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  dramatic  interest ; 
nevertheless,  the  general  tone  of  the  play  is  so  healthy, 
and  its  action  so  full  of  varied  life,  that  the  ultimate 
effect  is  in  a  large  degree  inspiring  and  exhilarating. 
As  early  as  1799,  the  drama  of  "  Gotz  von  Berlich- 
ingen"  was  thought  worthy  of  a  translation  into 
English  by  so  great  an  artist  as  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
It  ought  perhaps  to  be  remarked  that  Goethe  wrote 
three,  if  not  four,  editions  of  "  Gotz,"  and  that  only 
the  third  was  really  intended  for  the  stage. 

"  Gotz  von  Berlichingen  "  can  claim  two  great  mer- 
its. It  was  the  first  truly  national  German  play,  and 
it  was  also  the  play  in  which  was  first  fully  realized 
what  Lessing  and  others  had  so  earnestly  striven  for 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  205 

without  completely  achieving,  —  a  breach  with  tradi- 
tional rules,  and  the  complete  liberation  of  the  German 
stage  from  the  artificial  and  conventional  drama  of 
France,  which  had  so  baneful  an  influence  on  the  lit- 
erature and  morals  of  Germany.  The  work  has  thus 
the  merit  of  marking  a  most  important  epoch  in 
German  literature. 

There  must  have  been  considerable  outcry  on  the 
part  of  the  critics  against  this  departure  from  dramatic 
rules  and  precepts,^  and  this  must  have  come,  in  part 
at  least,  from  critics  whom  Goethe  felt  bound  to  re- 
spect ;  for  we  find  him  writing  to  his  friend  Kestner : 
"I  am  now  engaged  upon  a  drama  for  the  boards, 
in  order  that  the  fellows  may  see  that,  if  I  please,  I 
can  observe  rules  and  portray  morality  and  sentimen- 
tality." To  what  drama  Goethe  here  refers  we  can- 
not say  with  certainty.  It  may  have  been  "  Faust," 
the  idea  of  which  was  fermenting  in  his  mind  at  this 
time.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  first  draft  of  "  Faust " 
which,  in  the  main,  was  written  shortly  after  "  Gotz," 
though  not  published  till  many  years  later  (1790), 
corresponds  accurately  with  Goethe's  description,  inas- 
much as  it  follows  dramatic  rules  perhaps  more  than 
his  other  dramas,  and  deals  with  morality  and  senti- 
mentality. And  although  "Faust,"  as  a  completed 
work,  did  not  appear  till  sixty  years  later,  we  may 
here  insert  what  has  to  be  said  concerning  its  dra- 
matic properties.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
"Faust"  is  a  drama  to  which  the  standard  of  dra- 
1  See  the  scoff  of  Frederic  the  Great,  cited  on  page  158. 


206  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

matic  criticism  should  not  be  applied,  if  we  do  not 
wish  to  make  it  appear  a  failure,  as,  indeed,  Vischer 
and  other  eminent  critics  have  shown  it  to  be.  In- 
deed, as  a  whole,  it  does  not  belong  to  the  class  of 
acting  plays,  but  to  that  of  literary  and  philosophical 
dramas.  The  dramatic  idea  in  itself,  though  well  and 
profoundly  chosen,  is  far  too  vast  for  a  single  drama, 
and  almost  even  for  a  trilogy.  Moreover,  many  of 
the  scenes  are  almost  incapable  of  being  presented 
on  the  stage,  such  as  the  two  Walpurgisndchte  and 
the  Prologues.  It  is  true  that  the  whole  is  now  an- 
nually played  at  "Weimar,  but  under  circumstances 
altogether  exceptional,  and  such  as  are  hardly  possi- 
ble on  any  ordinary  stage.  Moreover,  the  dramatic 
unity  is  frequently  violated,  the  scenes  being  often 
bound  together,  not  by  dramatic  motivation,  but  by 
the  personal  identity  of  Faust.  In  fact,  it  is  largely 
a  series  of  episodes  in  the  life  of  an  individual,  Faust ; 
and  according  to  Aristotle,  the  episodic  drama  is  the 
worst  of  all.  The  only  part  that  lies  within  the 
sphere  of  strictly  dramatic  criticism  is  the  original 
fragment,  published  in  1790,  founded  on  popular  le- 
gend and  embodying  Faust's  relation  to  Gretchen. 
This  part  will  stand  the  severest  dramatic  criticism. 
The  subject  is  well  chosen,  and  capable  of  being  thor- 
oughly permeated  by  the  dramatic  idea.  It  also 
affords  excellent  motives  for  scenes  of  action  and  pas- 
sion. It  rises  naturally  to  a  climax,  and  descends  as 
naturally  to  the  catastrophe,  which  satisfies  all  the 
claims  of  poetic  justice.     The  interest  is  sustained 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  207 

throughout,  and  the  final  effect  is,  in  the  highest  de- 
gree, solemnizing  and  purifying.  It  cannot  be  other- 
wise than  a  matter  of  regret  that  Goethe  did  not 
complete  his  "  Faust "  in  accordance  with  his  original 
conception ;  for  the  additions  which,  after  his  meta- 
physical and  critical  studies,  he  made  even  to  the 
first  part,  not  to  speak  of  the  second,  essentially  in- 
jured the  unity  of  the  action,  and  considerably  im- 
paired its  effectiveness  for  the  stage. 

The  other  three  plays  of  Goethe  which  we  purpose 
to  criticise  as  typical  productions  are  "Egmont," 
"  Iphigenie,"  and  "  Tasso."  These  dramas  were  writ- 
ten nearly  at  the  same  time,  —  between  1777  and 
1789,  when  Goethe  was  in  the  full  possession  of  his 
powers.  They  may  therefore  be  considered  his  high- 
est dramatic  efforts.  First  came  "  Egmont,"  1777  to 
1785.  The  subject  is  an  event  in  the  rebellion  of 
the  Netherlands  against  Spanish  domination,  and 
therefore  may  be  considered  a  Tiaiional  subject.  In- 
deed, it  is  said  that  the  play  was  intended  as  a  com- 
panion to  "  Gotz."  Here,  for  the  first  time,  we  see 
the  baneful  effects  of  Goethe's  attempt  to  apply  dra- 
matic rules  in  a  comprehensive  way,  and  the  result 
as  a  whole  is  a  mechanical  production,  devoid  of 
dramatic  unity. 

This  criticism  may  appear  unjust,  especially  as  the 
play  has  held  the  stage  for  so  many  years,  and  pos- 
sesses a  certain  effectiveness.  But,  after  all,  this  ef- 
fectiveness is  not  truly  dramatic,  being  due,  in  great 
part,  to  a  few  graceful  love  scenes  scattered  through 


208  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

it,  and  in  some  degree  also  to  a  certain  historic  and 
political  interest,  which  has  no  artistic  bearing.  The 
chief  effectiveness  is  derived,  not  from  the  dramatic 
idea,  which  is  political,  but  from  a  series  of  domestic 
scenes  utterly  foreign  to  his  idea.  For  the  funda- 
mental idea,  or  collision,  is  this  :  A  nobleman  finds 
himself  placed  between  duty  to  his  conquered  and 
rebelling  countrymen,  and  fealty  to  their  conqueror, 
under  whom  he  has  accepted  service.  Being  of  a 
generous,  brave,  tender,  reckless,  and  unrefiective 
character,  fond  of  pleasure  and  popularity,  he  coun- 
tenances his  countrymen  in  their  seditious  practices, 
thereby  giving  offence  to  the  conquerors,  from  whom, 
nevertheless,  he  has  not  sufficient  patriotism  or  fore- 
sight, as  Orange  had,  to  disconnect  himself 

This  tragic  weakness  brings  about  his  destruction. 
To  such  a  political  idea,  the  domestic  scenes  between 
Egmont  and  Clarchen  are  plainly  alien,  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  have  no  bearing  upon  the  action 
of  the  play,  and  in  no  way  tend  to  relieve  or  develop 
it.  Indeed,  the  only  case  when  she  in  any  way  en- 
ters into  the  main  action  of  the  drama  is  after  the 
catastrophe  is  certain,  when  her  ghost  appears  as  a 
Deics  ex  macJmia  in  the  garb  of  Freedom,  from  a 
supernatural  M'orld,  whose  introduction  is  not  justi- 
fied by  the  plan  of  the  play.  It  is  a  rule  of  dramatic 
art,  that  the  miraculous  and  supernatural  should  not 
be  introduced  into  a  play  unless  they  have  been  sug- 
gested as  credible  agents  early  in  the  plot,  as  they  are 
in  the  case  of  the  witches  in  "  Macbeth,"  the  ghost 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  209 

iu  "Hamlet,"  and  others.  Indeed,  the  introduction 
of  Cliirchen  in  the  winding  up  of  "  Egmont "  is 
inartistic,  being  unmotivated,  and,  as  Schiller  said, 
operatic. 

Beside  the  weakness  of  the  termination,  the  play 
has  other  glaring  defects.  Many  of  the  scenes  are  too 
prolix,  and  so  loosely  connected  that  they  not  only 
could  be,  but  actually  are,  transposed  when  the  play 
is  represented ;  which  shows  that  the  interest  is  not 
properly  graded.  A  number  of  the  scenes  consist  of 
mere  padding  of  talk :  indeed,  Goethe  might,  with- 
out impropriety,  have  called  those  scenes,  in  which 
the  citizens  so  fortuitously  meet  to  gossip,  the 
choric  part,  and  assigned  to  his  play  a  chorus  of 
ISTetherlanders.  There  is  no  binding  and  loosing  in 
the  play,  and  of  course  no  Peripeteia.  On  the  whole, 
then,  in  spite  of  its  popularity,  from  the  standard  of 
just  dramatic  criticism  the  play  must  be  regarded  as 
a  failure. 

In  passing  from  "  Egmont "  to  "  Iphigenie,"  we 
suddenly  enter  a  new  world.  "  Iphigenie  "  is  almost 
in  every  respect  a  complete  contrast  to  the  play  we 
have  just  considered.  Here  Goethe  was  dealing  with 
a  subject  which  had  already  been  dramatized  by 
two  great  playwrights,  Euripides  and  Eacine. 

The  main  incidents  of  the  play,  therefore,  were 
already  given  in  the  title,  "  Iphigenie  in  Tauris,"  and 
a  new  motivation  alone  remained  to  be  supplied. 
This,  it  must  be  admitted,  Goethe  has  accomplished 
with  admirable  taste  and  success.     In  fact,  the  mo- 

li 


210  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

tivation  is  so  entirely  bis  own,  that  he  has  given  us 
one  of  the  best  of  character-dramas,  instead  of  a  fate- 
drama.  The  dramatic  unity  is  preserved  through- 
out :  the  tying  and  untying  of  the  knot,  although 
classically  simple,  are  managed  in  a  masterly  way. 
Strangely  enough,  although  the  characters  are  in 
large  measure  foils  to  each  other,  they  are  all  noble 
and  dignified.  The  character  of  Iphigenie,  combin- 
ing princess  and  priestess,  is  perhaps  the  purest 
and  stateliest  that  Goethe  or  any  dramatist  ever  con- 
ceived. One  lingers  before  it  with  ever-increasing 
delight,  as  he  does  before  the  Venus  of  Melos,  or 
the  Immaculate  Conception  of  Murillo.  One  espe- 
cial feature  of  the  "Iphigenie"  is  the  limpid  flow 
of  its  stately  language,  which  has,  perhaps,  never 
been  excelled.  To  use  the  words  of  Keats,  it  reads 
^  like  the  large  utterance  of  the  early  gods. 
^-^^j^\r^  f  Though  entirely  modern  and  un-Greek  in  tone  and 
\^  sentiment,  in  form  it  is  as  perfect  and  self-contained 
as  the  Parthenon  of  Iktinos  ;  and,  like  the  Parthenon, 
its  effect  is  calculated  for  an  audience  of  highly  de- 
veloped taste.  The  play  contains  little  external  action 
or  violent  expression  of  passion  to  attract  a  popular 
audience.  Its  strength  lies  mainly  in  its  psychologi- 
cal truthfulness,  which  in  the  hands  of  highly  culti- 
vated actors  can  be  made  very  impressive.  Although 
exception  might  be  taken  to  a  few  features  of  the 
play,  such  as  the  Euripidean  prologue,  and  the  some- 
what too  epigrammatic  and  philosophical  character 
of  the  dialogue,  "  Iphigenie  "  must  be  regarded  as  the 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  211 

most  finished  of  Goetlie's  dramatic  efforts ;  and  this 
is  clearly  shown  by  its  ultimate  effect,  which  leaves 
the  mind  in  the  attitude  of  solemnity,  purity,  and 
lofty  courage. 

From  "  Iphigenie  "  we  pass  to  the  last  of  Goethe's 
typical  plays,  "  Torquato  Tasso,"  finished  in  1789. 
In  the  choice  and  development  of  this  subject,  Goethe 
had  to  depend  upon  his  own  resources ;  and,  when 
we  compare  the  play  with  "  Iphigenie,"  we  see  at 
once  how  much  he  owed  in  the  latter  to  his  Greek 
predecessor,  especially  in  the  matter  of  incident. 
"  Tasso  "  is  almost  purely  a  character-drama,  and  is 
well  motivated  from  beginning  to  end.  Nevertheless, 
the  result  in  the  two  cases  is  very  different.  What  in 
"  Iphigenie  "  was  pure,  living  classical  stateliness,  has 
here  become  rigidity,  coldness,  formality.  Instead 
of  a  Parthenon  of  lucent  Pentelic  marble,  we  now 
enter  the  ice  palace  of  a  Prussian  autocrat.  The  car- 
dinal defects  of  this  play  are  largely  due  to  a  false 
choice  of  subject,  which  does  not  lend  itself  to  dra- 
matic development.  An  almost  sure  test  of  a  good 
play  is  that  its  dramatic  idea,  or  collision,  can  be  fully 
stated  in  a  few  words.  "  Macbeth,"  "  Hamlet," 
"  Iphigenie,"  may  be  cited  as  examples  of  this. 

In  "  Tasso,"  on  the  contrary,  it  is  extremely  diffi- 
cult to  state,  even  in  a  prolix  way,  the  dramatic  idea. 
The  truth  is,  Goethe  took  an  incident  from  the  life 
of  an  historic  character,  and  was  unable  to  lift  it  out 
of  its  historic  wording  into  the  refinement  of  a  living 
dramatic  idea.     A  plebeian  poet  of  passionate  tern- 


212  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

perament  finds  patronage  and  high  favor  at  the  court 
of  a  powerful  prince.  In  the  moment  of  his  highest 
triumph,  he  is  brought  face  to  face  with  another  fa- 
vorite of  the  court,  —  a  nobleman  of  practical  and 
diplomatic  turn  of  mind.  In  the  conflict  which 
follows  between  the  two  natures,  the  one-sidedness 
of  each  is  brought  out.  A  dispute  arises,  which  has 
to  be  settled  by  the  prince  according  to  a  purely 
conventional  and  unjust  standard;  bringing  disgrace 
upon  the  poet,  who  was  really  blameless,  and  acquit- 
ting the  culpable  nobleman.  Partly  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  prince,  the  nobleman  is  induced  to 
admit  his  wrong,  and  sue  for  reconciliation,  which  he 
ultimately  effects,  and  draws  from  the  poet  an  enthu- 
siastic acknowledgment  of  his  superiority.  This  story, 
though  long,  does  not  really  state  the  entire  plot  of 
the  play,  for  it  does  not  include  the  very  important 
roles  played  by  the  two  heroines.  But  this  fact  only 
bears  out  the  statement  that  the  idea  is  undramatic. 
And  indeed  these  rdles  are  almost  unrelated  to  the 
main  collision, — so  much  so  that  at  the  end  the  rela- 
tion between  Tasso  and  the  Princess  is  left  entirely 
unsolved.  The  same  inferior  and  fragmentary  art 
to  which  we  called  attention  in  "  Egmont "  reappears 
here.  The  effectiveness  of  the  play  when  represented 
is  due  in  large  measure  to  a  few  delicately  constructed 
and  tender  love  scenes,  which  have  no  real  relation  to 
the  dramatic  idea.  In  the  arts  of  the  playwriglit  and 
the  novelist,  love  scenes  are  too  frequently  the  refuge 
of  the  destitute. 


GOETHE  AS  A   PLAYWRIGHT.  213 

They  are  the  refuge  of  the  destitute,  because  they 
are  sure  to  interest  a  large  public,  whatever  the  char- 
acter of  the  work  may  be  in  which  they  appear.  In 
introducing  such  scenes  Goethe  shows  that  he  was  a 
true  German  himself,  and  knew  the  character  of  his 
countrymen.  In  a  similar  manner,  a  French  painter 
who  cannot  attract  attention  by  legitimate  means 
will  frequently  resort  to  the  introduction  of  nude 
figures,  sure  that  under  any  circumstances  this  will 
appeal  to  something  in  his  countrymen,  if  not  to 
their  artistic  sense.  To  sum  up  the  dramatic  charac- 
teristics of  the  play,  we  must  say  that,  although  con- 
forming in  many  ways  to  the  rules  of  art,  as  a 
drama  it  is  a  distinct  failure,  and  was  so  consid- 
ered even  by  Goethe's  contemporaries  ;  and  at  the 
present  day  the  play  has  almost  disappeared  from 
the  stage. 

This  ends  our  consideration  of  the  acknowledged 
typical  dramas  of  Goethe.  If  time  permitted,  other 
minor  dramas  might  have  been  considered  with 
interest,  but  the  general  result  would  not  thereby  be 
materially  affected.  What,  then,  we  may  ask,  is  that 
result  ?  Is  it  such  as  to  justify  us  in  affirming  that 
Goethe  was  a  great  playwright  ?  Without  detracting 
from  Goethe's  greatness  in  other  directions,  and  in- 
deed heartily  acknowledging  it,  we  must,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  verdict  of  rational  criticism,  answer 
the  question  in  the  negative.  And  in  order  to  jus- 
tify this  answer,  we  have  only  to  generalize  what  we 
have  already  stated  in  particular.      Goethe's  short- 


214  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

comings  as  a  playwright  may  be  said  to  be  four  in 
number :  — 

1.  A  fundamental  lack  of  the  dramatic  sense, — 
which  in  great  measure  prevented  him  from  recogniz- 
ing what  subjects  were  capable  of  being  transformed 
into  dramatic  ideas,  and  so  becoming  dramatically 
effective. 

2.  A  fundamental  lack  of  constructive  power, — 
which  prevented  him  from  producing  works  distin- 
guished by  organic  unity ;  thus  leaving  his  dramas, 
either  a  series  of  almost  disconnected  scenes,  like 
"  Gotz  "  and  "  Egmont,"  with  an  operatic  termination 
like  the  latter,  or  united  only  by  an  abstract  notion, 
not  arising  out  of  the  dramatic  idea,  but  essential  to 
it,  as  in  "  Tasso  "  and  in  "  Faust." 

3.  The  lack  of  passionate  expression  and  vigorous 
action,  leading  him  to  dwell  upon  descriptions  of 
characters  and  scenes,  rather  than  upon  living  ac- 
tions and  stirring  events. 

4.  His  inability  to  deal  with  the  legitimate  rules 
of  dramatic  art,  —  at  one  time  leading  him  to  set 
them  aside  altogether,  at  another  time  allowing  him 
to  be  completely  overmastered  by  them. 

Of  these  cardinal  defects  some  may  be  attrib- 
uted to  Goethe's  nationality,  wliile  one,  at  least, 
namely,  the  lack  of  constructive  power,  must  be 
ascribed  to  Goethe  himself.  As  compared  with  the 
other  leading  nations  of  Europe,  the  Germans  may 
be  said  to  be  an  uudramatic  people,  deficient  in 
passionate  expression,  overflowing  energy,  and  above 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  215 

all  in  the  keen  dramatic  sense  of  the  ludicrous  and 
incongruous,  —  which  is  the  salt  of  active  life  and 
which  is  incompatible  with  their  phlegmatic  tempera- 
ment and  extreme  sentimentality.  That  these  na- 
tional drawbacks  were  not  necessarily  fatal  to  a  great 
dramatic  genius,  when  relieved  by  a  strong  con- 
structive ability,  was  shown  in  the  case  of  Schiller, 
and  in  a  lower  degree  by  Lessing  and  Iffland ;  all  of 
whom,  though  inferior  to  Goethe  in  other  respects, 
are  superior  to  him  as  playwrights.  Goethe's  failure 
as  a  playwright,  therefore,  was  due  in  large  measure 
to  his  lack  of  constructive  power,  —  that  is,  of  the 
ability  to  hold  many  things  together  and  reduce 
them  to  a  living  organism  permeated  by  a  dramatic 
current.  This  defect  appears  not  only  in  Goethe's 
dramatic  books,  but  also  in  his  works,  —  notably  in 
"  Meister,"  —  and  may  account  for  his  failure  in  the 
plastic  and  graphic  arts.  As  a  poet  Goethe  was 
essentially  epic  and  lyric,  but  not  dramatic.  Ger- 
many owes  him  her  best  modern  epic,  namely, 
"  Hermann  and  Dorothea,"  and  a  large  number  of  the 
best  lyrics  in  the  language.  And,  in  confirmation 
of  this,  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  Goethe's  most 
perfect  drama,  "  Iphigenie,"  is,  like  the  Greek  plays 
which  he  imitated,  a  combination  of  epic  and  lyric 
elements. 

If  we  were  to  look  into  the  facts  and  habits  of 
Goethe's  life  for  an  explanation  of  his  failure  as  a 
playwright,  we  might  perhaps  find  it  in  three  things : 
(1)  his  tendency  to  allow  a  long  interval  to  elapse 


216  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

between  his  first  conception  of  a  piece  and  its  execu- 
tion and  completion,  his  views  respecting  life  and 
art  changing  materially  in  the  mean  while ;  (2)  his 
exceptional  good  fortune,  which  left  him  untouched 
by  many  forms  of  human  experience;  (3)  his  ever- 
increasing  withdrawal  from  the  world  of  human 
strife  and  suffering,  which  is  pre-eminently  the  dra- 
matic world.  The  first  of  these  facts  accounts  for 
much  that  is  fragmentary  and  inorganic  in  "  Faust," 
while  the  second  furnishes  a  sufficient  reason  for 
Goethe's  inferiority  as  a  playwright  to  the  poor, 
much-tried  Schiller,  who  during  the  most  of  his  brief 
life  was  deep  in  the  world's  hardships  and  sufferings. 
It  remains  forever  true,  that  "  we  learn  in  suffering 
what  we  teach  in  song." 

But  if,  in  a  technical  sense,  we  cannot  speak  highly 
of  Goethe  as  a  playwright,  we  must  not  fail  to  ac- 
knowledge his  other  great  merits  in  connection  with 
the  drama,  and  his  abundant  efforts  to  raise  it  from 
coarseness,  conventionality,  and  thraldom  to  French 
ideas,  and  to  make  it  an  integral  part  of  the  national 
literature  of  Germany. 

By  his  long-continued  personal  efforts  in  connec- 
tion with  the  stage  at  Weimar,  he  raised  the  standard 
of  acting  in  Germany,  and  by  his  admirable  and 
sympathetic  criticisms  he  elevated  the  standard  of 
dramatic  taste ;  and  last,  but  not  least,  by  introducing 
Shakespeare  to  the  notice  of  his  countrymen,  he 
gave  a  lasting  impulse  for  good  to  German  literary 
effort  and  life. 


GOETHE  AS  A  PLAYWRIGHT.  217 

Besides  all  these  great  merits,  his  failure  as  a  play- 
wright —  insist  upon  it  as  we  may  and  as  we  have  a 
right  to  do  —  seems  but  a  spot  on  the  face  of  the 
sun,  which  we  mention  oftener  in  order  to  excuse 
something  in  ourselves,  than  to  detract  from  the 
life-giving  fulness  of  that  luminary. 


218  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 


VIII. 
DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 

By  Mrs.  E.  D.  CHENEY. 

Alles  Vergangliche 
1st  niir  ein  Gleiclmiss ; 
Das  Unzulangliche 
Hier  wird's  Ereigniss  ; 
Das  Unbeschreibliche 
Hier  ist  es  gethan, 
Das  Ewig-Weibliche 
Zielit  uus  hinan.i 

Faust,  dose  of  the  Second  Part.    . 

These  words  are  the  ripened  fruit  of  the  whole 
study,  thought,  love,  and  life  of  the  greatest  poet  and 

1  Translations:  — 

All  that  is  changeable  The  Indescribable 

Is  but  a  fable  :  Here  it  is  done, 

Lo,  the  intangible  The  Ever  Womanly 

Reached  here  and  stable  !  Beckons  us  on. 
More  than  we  humanly 

Dreamed,  here  is  done, 

"While  the  Aye  Womanly  All  things  transitory 

Wafteth  us  on.  But  as  symbols  are  sent ; 

J.  S.  DwiGHT.  Earth's  insufficiency 

Here  grows  to  event. 
The  Indescribable 

All  that  doth  pass  away  Here  it  is  done,  — 

Is  but  a  fable  ;  The  Womau-Soul  leadeth  us 

All  that  eludes  is  made  Upward  and  on  ! 

Here  true  and  stable.  Bayabd  Taylob. 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  219 

thinker  of  our  century;  of  one  who  did  not  alone 
receive  and  repeat  traditions  of  the  past,  —  deeply  as 
he  studied  their  meaning,  —  but  who  fully  accepted 
the  scientific  method  of  investigation,  and  dared  to 
confront  every  question  that  suggested  itself  to  his 
mind.  They  are  not  the  expression  of  youthful  fancy, 
nor  the  impulse  of  early  passion.  AVe  may  almost 
say  they  are  the  last  important  utterance  of  his  mind, 
the  climax  of  all  his  thought,  all  his  experience. 
They  are  the  final  summing  up  in  his  thought  of 
human  life.  Sin  is  forgiven,  the  meaning  of  this 
world's  experience  as  symbol  of  eternity  is  declared, 
all  that  the  human  heart  has  longed  for  is  promised, 
and  the  whole  closes  with  the  words  that  seem  to 
include  everything,  — 

"  Das  Ewig-Weibliche 
Zielit  uns  hinan." 

What  a  promise  of  continued  life  and  fresh  creation 
is  there  in  these  words !  what  aboundincf  love,  what 
infinite  hope !  They  are  the  closing  words  of  the 
great  drama  of  "  Faust." 

Faust  was  the  burden  of  Goethe's  life,  —  a  task 
long  delayed,  but  never  relinquished ;  and  in  the 
final  Chorus  into  which  the  whole  grand  symphony  is 
resolved,  as  the  simple  Hymn  of  Joy  concludes  Beet- 
hoven's glorious  Ninth,  occurs  a  noble  fugue,  and  the 
same  thought  is  repeated  in  differing  form,  as  Faust 
is  released  from  his  slavery  to  evil  and  welcomed  into 
new  life.  As  in  the  First  Part  of  "  Faust"  the  Chorus 
of  Angels  and  of  Women  first  awaken  human  love  and 


220  LIFE  AND    GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

sympathy,  so  in  the  Second  they  again  minister  to 
him ;  and  it  is  finally  the  same  Margaret  who  asks  to 
teach  the  soul  escaping  from  sense  and  s,m}  and  it  is 
the  Mater  Gloriosa  who  points  out  the  path  : 

' '  Komm  hebe  dich  zu  hohren  Spharen  ! 
Wenn  er  dich  ahnet,  folgt  er  nacli."  ^ 

And  finally  the  Chorus  Mysticus  sums  up  the  mean- 
ing of  the  drama  in  the  pregnant  lines : 

"Alles  Vergangliche, 
1st  nur  ein  Gleicliniss  ; 
Das  Unzulaiigliche 
Hier  wird's  Ereigniss  ; 
Das  Unbeschreibliche 
Hier  ist  es  getlian, 
Das  Ewig-Weibliche 
Zieht  uns  liinan." 

Let  us  pause  to  note  that  Goethe  gives  to  his  ex- 
pression in  this  last  verse  the  abstract  form ;  he  uses 
the  neuter  article  and  noun,  —  Das  Ewig-  Weibliche. 
It  is  not  the  masculine  or  feminine  personified.  The 
whole  drama  has  been  drawing  out  the  most  abstract 
ideas  into  expression  in  its  varied  and  motley  groups, 
and  in  the  previous  verse.  Doctor  Marianus  has 
raised  the  feminine  personality  to  its  very  utmost 
expression,  —  Jungfrau  (maiden),  Mutter  (mother), 
Konigin  (queen),  Gottin  (goddess).     But  the  mystic 

1  Vouchsafe  to  me  that  I  instruct  him : 
Still  dazzles  him  the  Day's  new  glare. 

2  Rise  thou;  to  higher  spheres  conduct  him, 
Who,  feeling  thee,  shall  follow  there. 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  221 

Chorus  goes  a  step  further,  and  carries  the  thought 
out  of  personalities  again  into  the  supreme  abstract 
idea  of  womanhood.  This  seems  intentional  on  the 
poet's  part.  Faust  has  learned  at  last  the  meaning 
of  mortal  life,  the  value  of  human  relations,  but  this 
is  not  the  end.  AVhat  has  glorified  and  blessed  it  all 
becomes  now  immortal  and  infinite :  it  is  no  single 
loved  one,  but  the  Eternally  Womanly  which  is  hence- 
forth to  lead  him  upward  and  on. 

We  are  tempted  to  ask.  Did  Goethe  know  what  a 
great  sentence  he  had  penned  ?  Did  he  mean  all 
that  can  be  extracted  from  this  line  ?  Every  great 
poetic  word  is  a  flower  which  folds  up  in  itself  and 
brings  to  ripeness  precious  seed  innumerable,  and 
capable  of  producing  even  fairer  flowers  and  richer 
fruit,  and  this  was  a  flower  of  genius,  full  of  infinite, 
inexhaustible  meaning.  Goethe  himself  says  of  the 
Second  Part  of  Faust:  "If  it  contains  many  prob- 
lems, (inasmuch  as,  like  the  history  of  man,  the  last- 
solved  problem  ever  produces  a  new  one  to  solve,)  it 
will  nevertheless  please  those  who  understand  by  a 
gesture,  a  wink,  a  slight  indication.  They  will  find 
in  it  more  than  I  could  give." 

Doubtless  this  line  sounded  for  years  in  Goethe's 
soul  as  a  prophecy  and  inspiration,  not  as  a  rigid  for- 
mula ;  but  that  he  spoke  it  with  full  sense  of  its  deep 
meaning  and  truth  is  plain  from  the  place  which  he 
has  given  it,  and  the  relation  it  bears  to  all  his 
thought.  It  is  not  an  isolated  statement.  It  is  not 
the  dramatic  utterance  of  an  individual  mind,  it  is  the 


222  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

word  of  the  mystic  chorus  which  sums  up  the  whole 
drama  of  life,  Goethe  might  have  used  the  more  gen- 
eral term  ;  he  might  have  sung  the  Divine  Humanity 
which  is  expressed  in  Christian  thought.  Why  does 
he  find  his  true  expression  in  "  Das  Ewig-Weibliche  "  ? 
Why  does  he  use  this  word,  which  implies  difference 
of  sex,  and  the  eternally  directing  function  of  one 
aspect  of  the  eternal  thought,  instead  of  employing  a 
phrase  that  would  express  the  whole  ? 

Goethe's  habitual  thought  was  as  far  as  possible 
from  any  Indian  idea  of  reabsorption  in  Divinity  and 
the  loss  of  personality.  He  recognized  that  when  a 
life  was  achieved,  it  became  a  living  force,^  although 
he  questioned  whether  every  apparent  human  life  ac- 
complished this  purpose.-  It  is  not,  therefore,  from 
any  thought  of  the  extinction  of  personality  as  the 
final  consummation  of  life  is  approached,  that  Goethe 
uses  this  abstract  term,  but  to  express  the  essential 
nature  of  the  power  which  he  thus  invokes.     It  is 

1  In  a  letter  to  Zelter,  Goethe  says  :  •'  Let  us  continue  our  work 
until  one  of  us,  before  or  after  the  other,  returns  to  ether  at  the 
summons  of  the  World  Spirit !  Then  may  the  Eternal  not  refuse  to 
us  new  activities,  analoECOus  to  those  wherein  we  have  been  tested! 
If  He  shall  also  add  memory  and  a  continued  sense  of  the  Right 
and  the  Good,  in  his  fatherly  kindness,  we  shall  then  surely  all  the 
sooner  take  hold  of  the  wheels  which  drive  the  cosmic  machin- 
ery."—  Bayard  Taylor's  notes,  p.  532. 

2  He  said  to  Eckermann  :  "I  do  not  doubt  our  permanent  ex- 
istence, for  Nature  cannot  do  without  the  entelechie.  But  we  are 
not  all  immortal  in  the  same  fashion,  and  in  order  to  manifest  one's 
self  in  the  future  life  as  a  great  entelechie  one  must  also  become 
one."  —  Taylor,  p.  516. 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  223 

not  the  feminine  in  its  manifestation,  but  in  its  origi- 
nal character. 

In  our  effort  to  develop  the  meaning  of  this  line, 
let  us  trace  out,  so  far  as  brief  limits  will  allow, 
Goethe's  thought  of  Woman.  In  many  an  old  mytho- 
logic  story,  Woman  is  the  tempter,  the  embodiment 
of  the  material  side  of  life, — that  which  prevents  the 
soul  from  finding  its  true  relation  to  the  Divine.  Can 
it  be  that  this  is  the  reversal  of  the  truth  ?  that  it  is 
by  the  influence  of  the  womanly  that  man  alone  can 
be  saved  from  being  cut  off  from  the  Eternal,  the 
Universal,  the  Divine,  —  from  the  only  damnation 
possible,  the  breaking  of  the  bond  which  binds  all 
together  ?  The  light  in  which  Woman  is  regarded  is 
always  significant  of  the  philosophy  and  character  of 
a  people,  and  whether  she  is  revered  and  honored  as  | 
helper  and  sanctifier,  or  courted  as  a  pleasure,  or  de-  ' 
spised  as  an  inferior,  shows  the  quality  of  the  soul. 
To  man's  feeling  for  Woman  might  well  be  applied 
Wordsworth's  thoughtful  lines: 

"  Who  feels  contempt  for  any  living  thing 
Has  faculties  which  he  has  never  used, 
And  thought  with  him  is  in  its  infancy." 

I  find  nowhere  in  Goethe's  writings  an  expression 
of  contempt  for  Woman  as  such.  If  there  are  any 
seeming  exceptions,  they  are  simply  dramatic  utter- 
ances, appropriate  to  the  coarse  or  frivolous  persons 
who  utter  them.  But  he  does  not  shrink  from  as  thor- 
ough analysis  and  as  realistic  treatment  of  women  as 
of  every  other  subject.     He  depicts  women  as  he  has 


224  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF  GOETHE. 

seen  and  known  tliera,  studying  them  in  all  classes 
and  conditions.  We  find  the  holy  Saint,  whose  life 
is  in  rapt  communion  with  God,  —  Mignon,  who  has 
wandered  from  some  far-off  land,  an  unbidden  guest, 
and  finds  herself  lost  in  this  strange  world,  where 
even  love  fails  lier  as  a  guide,  —  the  stately  Iphigenie, 
the  practical  Theresa,  the  commonplace  Frau  Melina, 
the  unimpassioned  Charlotte,  —  Lotte,  the  good  sister, 
—  the  flippant  Phillina,  and  Margaret,  the  child  of 
Nature,  —  all  are  women,  and  he  recognizes  them  as 
souls  following  out  the  law  of  their  own  natures,  and 
influencing  those  with  whom  they  are  connected  by 
force  of  character  and  will.  They  are  not  women 
alone,  they  are  living  wholes.  He  always  recognizes 
the  value  of  Woman's  own  life  in  relation  with,  but 
not  simply  as  supplementary  to,  that  of  man.  When 
he  glorifies  the  household,  it  is  not  merely  as  a  place 
for  man  to  rest  from  past  labors,  and  fit  himself  for 
new  ones,  but  it  is  as  the  kingdom  of  the  most  pre- 
cious life,  to  which  all  other  service  should  be  subor- 
dinate ;  —  to  rule  here  is  to  rule  at  the  centre.  That 
a  woman's  life  should  be  fully  wrought  out  from  her 
own  centre  of  being,  is  just  as  important  as  that  a 
man's  should  be,  —  as  is  shown  in  Theresa,  in  Natalia, 
and  in  the  whole  tenor  of  his  thought. 

How  earnestly  he  sought  to  understand  Woman's 
life  from  her  own  stand-point,  and  not  as  men  look 
at  it,  is  shown  by  his  interest  in  "  The  Confessions  of 
a  Fair  Saint,"  which  is  introduced,  seemingly  some- 
what irrelevantly,  into  his  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  though 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  225 

she  is. found  to  have  deeply  influenced  the  other  char- 
acters. It  is  a  genuine  experience  of  a  woman's  soul, 
of  which  a  mystical  religious  feeling  has  taken  posses- 
sion, without  driving  out  the  natural  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  her  sex.  As  such,  he  gives  it  without 
comment,  as  he  might  a  scientific  discovery.  She  is 
a  striking  instance  of  a  most  womanly  woman  find- 
ing ultimate  satisfaction  in  spiritual  life,  without  its 
full  expression  in  human  relations. 

In  an  early  article  of  Goethe's,  puhlished  in  1772, 
when  he  was  but  twenty-three  years  old,  appears  his 
thought  of  the  profound  influence  of  Woman.  It  is  a 
notice  of  the  poems  of  a  Polish  Jew,  who  seems  to 
have  been  a  young  and  fickle  lover.  He  says :  "  0 
Genius !  be  it  publicly  known  that  neither  shallow- 
ness nor  weakness  is  the  cause  of  his  fickleness.  Let 
him  but  find  a  maiden  who  is  worthy  of  him." 
Goethe  then  describes  the  maiden  full  of  charms  and 
home  graces :  — 

"  Should  these  two  find  each  other,  they  at  once  divine 
what  an  embodiment  of  Hiss  each  has  secured  in  the 
other,  and  that  they  never  can  be  parted.  Then  let  him 
stammer — foreshadowing,  hoping,  enjoying  —  what  none 
with  words  liave  ever  spoken  out,  none  with  tears,  none 
with  the  long  lingering  look  and  the  soul  in  it.  Truth 
and  living  beauty  will  then  be  in  his  songs,  not  the  glit- 
tering-baubles floating  in  so  many  Genuan  melodies." 

Lotte,  in  "  The  Sorrows  of  Werther,"  is  one  of  those 
wonderful  creations  of  genius  whom  you  cannot  ana- 
lyze more  than  a  beloved  child.     Grimm  says  :  — 

15 


226  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

"  Up  to  the  time  of  her  appeai-ance,  Klopstock's  Fanny 
had  been  the  highest  ideal  of  womanhood  in  Germany ; 
but  Lotte  at  once  won  all  hearts.  After  the  appearance 
of  Werther,  young  girls  named  Lotte  refused  to  be  called 
so  any  longer,  feeling  themselves  unworthy  to  bear  the 
name.  .  .  .  Lotte  is  the  most  simple  and  lovely  German 
maiden,  of  whom  nothing  special  is  to  be  said.  She  en- 
joys dancing,  she  loves  poetry,  she  can  he  enthusiastic; 
but  she  only  needs  to  hear  the  slightest  noise  in  the 
house,  and  she  leaps  down  from  the  heavens  into  her 
wonted  sphere,  and  is  nothing  but  a  housewife." 

How  sanitary  must  have  been  the  influence  which 
made  this  the  ideal  of  German  girls  ! 

In  Goethe's  own  life  the  influence  of  Woman  pre- 
dominates. His  "  Wahrheit  und  Diclitung  aus  mei- 
nem  Leben, "  the  review  of  his  own  development, 
dwells  upon  his  relations  of  love  and  friendship  to 
various  women,  far  more  than  upon  matters  of  states- 
manship or  learning.  He  was  truly  born  of  his 
mother's  nature.  Her  traits  are  reproduced  in  him, 
while  from  his  rich,  pedantic  father  came  the  formal- 
ity, the  net- work  of  convention,  the  shell  of  worldly 
environment,  which  surrounded  and  obscured  his  life. 
Grimm  says :  "  Goethe's  father  can  be  set  aside :  we 
do  not  need  him  to  understand  Goethe.  But  his 
mother  is  inseparable  from  him ;,  she  forms  a  part  of 
his  being  ;  she  understood  him  from  the  beginning, 
she  divined  him."  Educated  with  his  sister,  a  noble 
type  of  the  intellectual  woman,  says  Grimm,  "he 
was  from  youth  better  acquainted  with  women  than 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  227 

with  men."  But  in  spite,  or  more  truly  in  conse- 
quence, of  this  strong  influence  from  genuine  women, 
Goethe  was  decidedly  a  masculine  man.  The  femi- 
nine by  its  polarity  developed  the  full  force  of  his 
character.  The  calmness  and  self-poise,  the  absence 
of  self-devotion  in  his  nature,  the  joy  in  pursuit 
rather  than  fruitful  delight  in  possession  of  the  de- 
sired object,  the  centripetal  force  which  made  all 
things  serve  him,  —  intellectual  traits  which  led  to 
the  false  appearance  of  moral  selfishness  and  coldness 
in  affection,  —  mark  this  development  of  the  masculine. 
But  they  never  prevented  him  from  recognizing  the 
great  truth  of  that  relation  whose  leadings  he  steadily 
followed  through  all  his  life  and  thought,  until  he  ex- 
pressed it  in  the  immortal  line,  — 

"  Das  Ewig-Weibliche 
Zieht  uns  hinan." 

It  is  for  the  truth  of  relation  that  w^e  come  into 
mortal  existence,  —  not  to  know  ourselves,  not  to 
save  ourselves,  not  to  be  ourselves  except  in  rela- 
tion, —  so  that  the  individual  is  bound  again  to  the 
universal.  The  relation  of  Man  to  Woman  is  typi- 
cal of  this  great  law.  As  light  and  darkness  show 
forth  each  other,  so  Man  and  Woman  are  fully  re- 
vealed only  in  their  relation  to  each  other.  Through- 
out the  universe,  only  relation  is  creative.  Goethe 
sees  that  not  identity,  but  union  in  difference,  is 
the  attitude  of  Man  and  Woman.  When  Man  and 
Woman  see  each  other,  they  begin  to  apprehend  the 
Universe. 


228  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

"When  I  saw  thee,  all  other  things 

Appeared  to  me  more  bright  ; 
I  looked  not  on  thee,  but  on  them 

In  thy  reflected  liglit ; 
Nor  knew  if  it  were  they  or  thou 

That  filled  me  with  delight." 

Then  each  learns  that  its  own  self  is  not  complete, 
can  only  be  perfected  by  fitting  itself  to  others,  accept- 
in;^  the  welfare  of  others  as  more  its  own  than  its 
own  personality,  — 

"  When  each  the  other  loves,  and  loves  himself  no  more." 

This  is  love  and  piety ;  and  the  Masculine  and  Fem- 
inine, however  embodied,  do  ever  this  service  to  each 
other.     As  a  noble  woman  thus  serves  man,  so  says 

Dante,  — 

"  The  like  in  lady  doth  a  man  of  worth." 

Separation  is  the  first  step  which  makes  creation, 
development,  life,  possible,  —  not  one,  but  two.  We 
must  conceive  of  two  before  we  can  have  relation, 
however  we  may  still  see  that  the  two  are  one.  How 
constantly  this  thought  of  relation  runs  through  all 
Goethe's  study  and  life  '  "  Nothing  is  fair  or  good 
alone."  It  must  be  judged  by  all.  Grimm  says, 
"  Goethe  was  persuaded  that  all  phenomena  stand  in 
mutual  relation,  and  therefore  nothing  can  be  demon- 
strated by  the  study  of  isolated  parts," 

"  Truly  doth  Nature  all  things  tell, 
Nature  hath  neither  shell  nor  kernel, 
Whole  everywhere,  at  each  point  thou  canst  learn  all ; 
Only  examine  thine  own  heart 
Whether  thou  shell  or  kernel  art." 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  229 

"  Wouldst  thou  truly  study  Nature, 
Seek  the  whole  in  every  feature. 

Newton  taught  the  doctrine  of  a  definite  number 
of  independent  colors ;  but  with  Goethe  color  is  the 
relation  between  light  and  darkness ;  white  is  the 
color  of  light,  and  black  of  darkness.  All  its  beauty 
and  -variety  come  from  the  fact  that  light  is  never 
wholly  lost,  darkness  never  wholly  escaped.  It  is 
a  grand  generalization,  if  it  has  not  yet  been  corrobo- 
rated by  analysis.  So  too,  in  his  great  biological  dis- 
covery, he  cannot  accept  an  independent  creation 
of  leaf,  flower,  and  seed.  They  stand  in  relation  to 
each  other  not  alone  by  mutual  utility,  but  by  devel- 
opment and  the  possibility  of  exchange  of  function 
and  reconversion  into  each  other. 

"All  in  their  forms  are  kindred,  and  yet  no  one  like  another  ; 
So  this  wonderful  choir  points  to  a  half-hidden  law." 

How  deeply  he  felt  the  spiritual  significance  of 
this  law,  as  running  through  all  spheres  of  being,  is 
shown  by  the  poem  which  he  addresses  to  his  be- 
loved one,  in  which  he  carries  up  the  analogy  from 
the  plant  to  friendship  and  love.  After  a  description 
of  the  flow^er,  as  scientifically  true  as  it  is  poetic,  he 
concludes  : 

"  0,  bethink  thou  then  too,  how,  out  of  the  germ  of  acquaintance, 
Day  by  day  between  us  mutual  interest  grew; 
How  in  the  depth  of  our  hearts  Friendship  revealed  its  full  power, 
And  how  Love  came  last,  bringing  the  blossoms  and  fruits. 
Think  what  manifold  hues  and  shapes,  now  this,  now  another, 
Nature  in  quiet  unfolds,  and  to  our  feelings  imparts. 
Now  enjoy  thyself  fully  to-day!  for  holy  affection 


230  LIFE  AND    GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

Strives  for  its  highest  fruits>  strives  for  congenial  tastes, 
Simila,r  views  of  all  things,  that,  through  harmonious  insight, 
Firmly  united,  the  pair  thus  the  true  heaven  may  find." 

So  the  naturalist  is  prepared  for  the  great  mystery 
of  sex,  which  we  recognize  to  be  neither  identity  nor 
unlikeness ;  for  the  sexes  are  like  stamen  and  pistil, 
different  modifications  of  the  same  type,  and  so  per- 
petually varying  that  it  is  impossible  to  make  any 
statement  of  distinguishing  characteristics,  which  will 
be  invariably  true.  We  trace  analogous  polarity 
even  in  the  inorganic  world ;  yet  although  one  may 
fancifully  claim  the  sharp  acid  or  the  inert  base  as 
dimly  representing  one  or  the  other  sex,  no  one  will 
seriously  claim  that  this  distinction  is  clearly  recog- 
nizable, for  the  characteristic  function  of  creation  is 
not  found.  In  the  vegetable  world,  where  the  func- 
tion is  in  many  cases  performed  by  the  whole  organ- 
ism, it  is  difficult  to  trace  any  clear  lines ;  but  as  we 
find  more  developed  specimens,  the  functions  of  parts 
become  more  distinct ;  the  root  will  no  longer  perform 
the  duty  of  the  leaf,  nor  the  leaf  that  of  the  flower. 
In  the  more  complex  classes  of  both  the  vegetable 
and  animal  world,  we  separate  the  sexes  broadly  by 
the  functions  of  reproduction ;  and  these  are  gener- 
ally accompanied  by  secondary  characteristics,  in 
many  cases  so  strongly  marked  as  at  once  to  indicate 
sex.  But  throughout  these  kingdoms,  these  second- 
ary characteristics  are  very  changeable.  The  females 
excel  in  size  in  the  lower  orders,  and  either  sex  in 
brilliancy  and  depth  of  color  according  to  their  sur- 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  231 

roundings.  Among  fishes  the  male  often  builds  the 
nest  and  cares  for  the  young,  —  iu  some  cases  even 
on  his  own  body.  The  female  is  capable  of  as  great 
violence  as  the  male,  and  the  male,  under  stress  of 
circumstances,  can  be  as  devoted  and  tender  as  the 
mother.  In  the  animal  world  sex  is  less  differen- 
tiated in  the  lowest  forms  of  life ;  but  the  analogy 
does  not  hold  in  the  spiritual  world.  In  the  highest 
types  of  human  life,  we  always  find  a  blending  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  sexes.  The  illustrations  are 
almost  too  numerous  for  selection. 

Jesus,  Buddha,  Fenelon,  Diirer,  Charles  Lamb,  — 
even  Michel  Angelo  and  Dante,  —  blend  strong  femi- 
nine traits  with  their  masculine  powers  ;  and  no  less 
in  Deborah  and  Zenobia,  in  Joan  of  Arc,  Isabella  of 
Castile,  Elizabeth  Frye,  Lucretia  Mott,  and  Margaret 
Fuller,  do  we  find  their  full  womanliness  reinforced 
by  powers  commonly  esteemed  masculine.  In  our 
own  immediate  circle  we  can  easily  trace  out  the 
same  law ;  we  find  the  boy-girl  and  the  girl-boy  in 
almost  every  family.  The  father  of  the  Fair  Saint 
"often  with  suppressed  joy  called  her  his  misfash- 
ioued  son."  Coleridge  expresses  the  greatest  scorn 
for  the  man  who  recognizes  no  sex  in  soul ;  but  the 
difference  is  so  subtile  that  it  has  never  been  M'ell 
stated  in  words.  And  yet  so  rooted  in  thought  is 
this  distinction  that  the  most  religious  souls  have  felt 
the  necessity  of  recognizing  it  as  existing  within  the 
bosom  of  Divinity  itself.  Theodore  Parker  would 
not  accept  Coleridge's  dictum,  because  he  knew  that 


232  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

in  a  semi-barbarous  civilization,  such  as  ours  still  is, 
it  became  the  pretext  for  a  claim  of  sovereignty,  and 
a  power  of  oppression ;  but  he  felt  the  necessity  of 
expressing  the  thought  in  the  beautiful  formula  with 
which  he  was  wont  to  begin  his  prayer :  "  0  God  !  our 
father  and  our  mother  both."  So  the  apostle  of  the 
Brahmo  Somaj,  —  the  most  original  and  sincere  re- 
ligious movement  of  our  day,  though  it  be  still  vague 
and  undefined,  like  its  Indian  predecessors, — recog- 
nizes this  truth,  and  the  Divine  Maternity  is  one  of 
the  leading  doctrines  of  its  faith.  In  fact,  this  idea, 
mystically  expressed  in  so  many  old  mythologies,  is 
to  be  the  guiding  star  of  the  better  civilization  yet  to 
come.  George  Sand  says,  in  one  of  her  letters, "  There 
is  but  one  sex " ;  yet  in  spite  of  her  masculine  name 
the  eioig-wdhliche  is  revealed  not  only  in  the  moth- 
erly heart,  but  in  the  longing  for  human  love  and 
the  infinite  tenderness  for  humanity  expressed  in  all 
her  work. 

How  easy  to  accept,  but  how  impossible  to  carry 
out,  the  distinction  of  sex  in  the  spiritual  life !  In 
externals,  in  the-  realm  of  form,  it  is  easy  enough  to 
make  divisions,  but  in  any  finer  sense  it  can  only  be 
felt,  no  analysis  has  ever  been  keen  enough  to  detect 
it.  In  intellectual  life  this  is  shown  by  the  con- 
stantly repeated  occurrence  of  the  fact  that  woman's 
mental  work  has  been  wholly  accepted  as  that  of 
man.  Three  of  the  greatest  novelists  of  our  time, 
George  Sand,  George  Eliot,  and  Currer  Bell,  while 
known  only  by  the  products  of  their  genius,  found 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  233 

no  eyes  keen  enough  to  detect  their  feminine  traits. 
Thackeray,  an  eminently  masculine  man,  was  sure 
George  Eliot  was  of  his  sex.  Dickens  was  the  first 
to  detect  her  secret.  The  acute  critics  of  Jena  de- 
clared "  Agnes  von  Lilien,"  written  by  Caroline  von 
Lengefeld,  to  be  an  anonymous  work  of  Goethe,  the 
master  mind  of  Germany.  In  our  own  society  Charles 
Egbert  Craddock  found  no  recognition  as  a  woman 
till  she  appeared  in  person  to  her  astonished  pub- 
lishers. Had  the  same  outward  reasons  existed  to 
lead  Edgar  Poe,  or  Charles  Lamb,  or  Dickens,  to  mas- 
querade under  a  woman's  name,  we  might  have  found 
the  caprice  and  unregulated  fancy  of  woman  in  "  The 
Eaven,"  the  tender  sensibility  and  beauty  of  her  sex 
in  "  The  Essays  of  Elia,"  and  the  warm  humanity,  the 
morbid  sentimentality,  and  the  utter  incapacity  of 
woman  to  represent  the  passion  of  love,  in  "  Oliver 
Twist"  and  "Little   Dorrit." 

Hermann  Grimm,  in  his  "  Essay  on  Goethe  and 
Suleika,"  tells  a  remarkable  and  pleasing  instance  of 
such  an  interchange  of  thought  between  Goethe  and 
his  young  beloved  friend,  Marianne  von  Willemer. 
Grimm  quoted  as  one  of  Goethe's  finest  poems  the 
song, 

"  Acli,  urn  deine  feuchten  Schwingen 
West,  wie  sehr  ich  dich  beneide," 

and  found  to  his  amazement  that  it  was  written 
by  the  lady  ;  and  he  says,  "  The  Divan  from  which 
this  poem  was  taken  was  almost  carried  on  like  a 
duet  between  them."      Yet   who   has   distinguished 


234  LIFE  AND  GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

the  masculine  and  feminine  voices   in   the  various 
lines  ? 

Open  any  book  in  physiology,  and  it  is  set  down 
for  you  in  broad  characters,  "  Man  is  strong,  reason- 
able, governed  by  his  judgment;  Woman  is  weak, 
emotional,  swayed  by  her  feelings."  But  take  this 
formula  with  you  as  your  chart  in  active  life,  and  you 
will  soon  find  it  a  delusive  cheat.  Witness  the  ex- 
citement of  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  the  ease  with 
which  a  cyclone  of  confidence  draws  all  men  into  its 
fatal  grasp,  or  a  sudden  blast  of  doubt  scatters  the 
trust  of  the  whole  business  community.  Even  the 
British  House  of  Commons,  the  most  carefully  chosen 
and  perhaps  the  sanest  body  of  men  in  the  world, 
goes  into  wild  delirium  at  the  defeat  of  a  liberal 
ministry.  After  thirty  years'  experience  in  various 
reformatory  and  benevolent  works  where  men  and 
women  took  part  together,  I  have  never  been  able 
to  trace  a  dividing  line,  on  one  side  of  which  M'ere 
the  men  guided  by  judgment,  and  on  the  other  the 
women  swayed  by  feeling.  Goethe's  men  are  very 
men,  and  his  women  always  women,  yet  he  has  given 
us  almost  every  shade  of  character  in  womanly  form. 

In  "Elective  Affinities,"  Ottilie  is  so  absolutely 
feminine,  according  to  the  recognized  type,  that  she 
is  unfit  for  human  life ;  like  Ophelia,  she  has  no  self- 
directing  power,  and  is  crushed  by  the  world  about 
her,  as  the  simple  pressure  of  the  common  air  breaks 
the  fragile  glass,  exhausted  of  its  resisting  medium. 
In  her   exquisite   purity   and   loveliness  sin  cannot 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  235 

touch  her,  yet  she  is  incapable  of  virtue,  and  can 
only  fly  from  the  battle  which  she  is  unable  to  win. 
Charlotte,  too,  is  womanly,  in  her  calm  sense,  her 
cold  unselfishness,  ready  to  resign  all  her  rights, 
all  her  happiness,  to  another's  wishes,  or  a  sense  of 
duty  ;  but  by  that  very  want  of  self-assertion,  inca- 
pable of  strengthening  others,  and  holding  them  to 
good  by  the  bond  of  justice.  And  what  has  Edward 
of  the  Masculine  but  that  self-centring  thought  which 
in  its  good  and  evil  is  characteristic  of  man  ?  The 
puzzle  of  the  book  is  in  his  unfitness  to  mate  with 
the  lovely  girl.  Sweetness  of  temper,  a  crystalline 
frankness  of  manner,  refinement  of  deportment,  and 
capacity  for  intellectual  enjoyment,  make  him  a  de- 
lightful companion.  His  early  attraction  to  Char- 
lotte is  renewed  w^hen  both  are  freed  from  outward 
constraint,  and  can  look  forward  to  a  life  of  intellect- 
ual companionship  and  aesthetic  enjoyment.  How 
devoid  of  passion  the  relation  is,  becomes  evident 
from  Charlotte's  having  planned  his  marriage  with 
Ottilie.  But  Charlotte  is  very  wise  in  her  own 
domain,  and  she  knew  well  the  danger  of  destroying 
this  happy  balance  of  friendship.  Without  jealousy 
on  her  part,  it  is  his  friend's  introduction  into  the 
home  which  she  opposes,  not  Ottilie's.  She  is  the 
self-restrained,  reasonable  being ;  he  is  the  rash  and 
self-willed  one,  who  will  let  nothing  stand  between 
him  and  his  desire.  And  it  is  this  warmth  of  de- 
sire alone  which  redeems  his  nature :  he  does  rec- 
ognize that  the  beloved  one  is  more  than  himself; 


236  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

and  this  alone  makes  it  comprehensible  that  Goethe 
can  recognize  an  eternal  union  for  them.  "  So  lie 
the  lovers,  sleeping  side  by  side.  Peace  hovers  above 
their  resting-place.  Fair  angel  faces  gaze  down  upon 
them  from  the  vaulted  ceiling,  and  what  a  happy 
moment  that  will  be  when  one  day  they  wake  again 
together."  He  has  blindly  loved,  but  he  has  rec- 
ognized Love,  and 

"  Das  Ewig-Weibliche 
Zieht  ihn  hinan." 

Tasso  is  more  poetic  and  lovely  than  Edward,  but 
is  he  not  equally  self-centred  ?  His  life  is  not 
wrecked  on  sensual  desire,  but  on  the  morbid  sensi- 
tiveness of  his  soul,  which  never  enters  into  the  life 
of  others,  into  the  generous  activity  of  the  Duke,  or 
calm  wisdom  of  Antonio,  but  measures  everything 
by  himself  His  love  was  as  narrow  as  the  learning 
of  Faust.  He  had  not  learned  the  secret  of  relation. 
The  Princess  sees  his  need :  — 

"  Willst  du  genau  erfahren  was  sich  ziemt 
So  frage  nur  bei  edlen  Frauen  an."  ^ 

She  will  have  him  find,  in  a  love  that  gives  itself 
wholly  up,  the  freedom  that  he  needs.  Antonio  also 
sees  his  need  of  relation,  but  bids  him  seek  it  in 
active  life : 

"  Der  Menscli  erkennt  sich  nur  im  IMensclien  ;  nur 
Das  Leben  lehret  jedem  was  er  sey."  2 

1  Do  you  wish  to  learn  truly  what  is  becoming, 
Ask  it  only  of  noble  women. 

2  Man  knows  himself  only  in  Men  ;  only  Life 
Teaches  every  one  what  he  is. 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICEE.  237 

"  Wilhelra  Meister  "  is  the  study  of  the  development 
of  a  human  mind.  What  a  part  does  Woman  play  in 
it !  Goethe  seems  striving  to  find  the  true  type  of 
Woman  to  call  forth  the  noblest  in  man.  How  lov- 
ing, fresh,  and  natural  is  poor  Mariana  !  Wilh elm's 
boyish  affection  rashly  indulged,  and  as  he  believes 
betrayed,  is  never  forgotten,  and  only  through  this 
love  is  the  joy  of  paternity  known.  The  wise  men 
say,  "  The  child  is  thine,  and  in  our  opinion  the 
mother  was  not  unworthy  of  thee."  He  never  fully 
loves  again,  but  is  ever  seeking  for  this  lost  Eden 
of  unconscious  trusting  affection.  His  feeling  for 
Mariana  was  loving,  fresh,  and  genuine,  but  regard- 
less of  law  and  duty  to  others.  It  was  like  his  pas- 
sion for  the  stage :  when  the  illusion  passed,  much 
of  the  truth  and  poetry  went  also,  yet  it  left  behind 
remorse  never  silenced,  and  regret  never  satisfied. 
How  striking  is  the  tenacity  of  this  feeling,  and  the 
facility  with  which  a  fancied  resemblance  makes 
him  believe  that  a  fateful  past  can  be  recalled !  Vary- 
ing impulses  play  over  him,  yet  there  is  an  evident 
progress  in  the  development  of  his  ideal.  He  enjoys 
only  superficially  the  toying  of  Philliua,  sensuous 
and  graceful  as  it  is.  She  only  "  pressed  to  the  door 
of  his  heart,  but  never  entered."  He  meets  with  fa- 
therly care  the  unearthly  love  of  Mignon ;  he  longs  to 
bring  into  his  life  the  strong  practical  good-sense  of 
Theresa ;  he  is  fascinated  by  the  beauty  of  the  Count- 
ess, the  spiritual  grace  of  Natalia,  —  but  they  are  only 
shadows  of  things  to  come,  which  never  come.     He 


238  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

is  ever  a  scholar,  trying  all  phases  of  life.  He 
has  never  become  a  Man,  and  so  has  never  found 
his  true  relation  to  Woman.  Yet  keeping  his  ideal 
high  and  pure,  we  still  watch  for  his  'unfolding, 
sure  that  the  Eternally  Womanly  is  leading  him  up. 

In  Macaria,  who  appears  only  towards  the  conclu- 
sion of  "  Wilhelm  Meister's  Wanderjahre,"  (if  there 
be  a  conclusion  to  a  work  so  wandering.)  we  have  a 
type  of  woman  whose  influence  approaches  that  of 
"  das  Ewig-Weibliche."  She  has  nothing  of  the 
attributes  of  passion,  the  sensuousness  of  sex;  but 
by  her  unselfish  wisdom,  by  the  power  which  she 
has  gained  from  suffering  and  thought,  to  look 
clearly  upon  human  affairs  in  their  largest  relations, 
she  becomes  confessor  and  counsellor  to  all  within 
her  range,  —  always  leading  them  to  be  true  to  them- 
selves, while  in  her  "light  do  they  see  light."  This 
function  belongs  to  the  post-maternal  period  of  life, 
and  has  ever  been  recognized  in  the  Virgin  becom- 
ing the  Seeress.  Macaria's  mystical  relations  to 
heavenly  bodies  indicate  the  universal  reach  of  her 
influence  and  central  source  of  her  inspirations. 

The  deep  sense  of  the  overpowering  sanctity  and 
importance  of  the  relation  of  Man  to  Woman  appears 
in  many  of  the  minor  dramas,  I  might  perhaps  say  in 
all  of  them.  Goethe  places  it  in  every  light.  Eugenia, 
in  "  Die  Naturliche  Tochter,"  finds  herself  suddenly 
placed  in  an  exceptional  position.  She  will  be  raised 
above  the  multitude  by  rank  and  power.  She  grasps 
at  the  outward  signs  of  it,  to  find  it  slipping  from 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  239 

her  grasp.  She  has  been  false  to  the  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  whole,  and  the  whole,  represented 
by  the  Church  and  the  State,  threatens  to  crush  her. 
How  can  she  be  saved  ?  Only  by  the  acceptance  of 
the  marriage  relation,  whose  sanctity  and  power  are 
set  forth  by  the  simple  burgher  : 

"  Im  Hause  wo  der  Gatte  sicher  waltet, 
Da  wohiit  allein  der  Friede,  den  vergebens 
In   weiten  du,  da  draussen  suchen  magst."  ^ 

And  again  : 

"  Als  Gatte  kann  ich  mit  dem  Konig  rechnen."  ^ 

He  too  recognizes  the  function  of  the  wife  : 

"  So  fuhrt  ein  edles  Weib  ihn  leicht  ans  Ziel. 
Hiuauf  zur  hochsten  Frauen  kelir  er  sich. "  ^ 

The  marriage  which  can  save  is  of  the  heart  and 
soul,  as  the  monk  expresses  it : 

*'  Den  Wunsch  der  Liebe,  die  zum  All  das  Eine, 
Zum  Ewigen  das  Gegenwartige 
Das  Flucbtige  zum  Daiiernden  erhebt, 
Deu  zu  eifiillen  ist  sein  gottlich  Amt."  * 

^  In  the  house  where  the  husband  surely  directs, 
There  alone  dwells  peace,  which  in  vain  in  the  distance 
Thou  out  there  in  the  woi'ld  mayst  seek. 

2  As  husband  can  I  reckon  with  the  king. 

8  So  does  a  noble  wife  easily  lead  him  to  the  goal. 
Up  to  the  highest  women  does  he  strive, 

*  The  wish  of  Love,  which  raises  one  to  the  All,  the  present  to 
the  Eternal,  the  fleeting  to  the  Everlasting,  that  to  fulfil  is  her 
godlike   office. 


240  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

In  the  Old  Harper's  history  we  have  the  uncon- 
scious violation  of  a  natural  law,  bringing  intense 
tragedy,  but  not  destruction  of  inward  purity.  In 
"  Die  Geschwister "  we  have  the  sweet  regard  of  a 
sister  unconsciously  intensified  by  the  difference  of 
sex,  and  changed  into  happy  love  when  the  true  rela- 
tion is  revealed.  In  "  Die  Wette,"  a  pretty  little  com- 
edy, the  lighter  characteristics  of  the  two  sexes  are 
very  pleasantly  painted,  and  the  lesson  of  mutual  for- 
bearance and  concession  gently  taught. 

In  "  Clavigo,"  Goethe  reproduces  in  tragic  form 
what  was  not  so  tragic,  his  love  for  Frederika;  and 
here  is  the  same  thouglit  which  ever  haunted  him,  — 
it  is  the  womanly  which  tests  man.  Clavigo  had 
failed  to  stand  this  test,  had  been  untrue  to  love,  and 
only  tragedy  is  possible.  Eepentance  does  not  help. 
The  young,  romantic  heart  does  not  accept  any  salving 
of  sores,  any  of  nature's  processes  of  filling  up  chasms 
with  new  growth.  Eepentance  cannot  heal  this  sin, 
for  no  reparation  is  possible ;  relation  is  broken,  faith 
is  destroyed.  Even  in  the  moment  of  hoped  for 
reunion,  Marie  recognizes  that  the  old  tie  cannot  be 
restored.  Clavigo  has  passed  into  another  mood : 
the  opportunity  is  gone.  Death  alone,  resolving  the 
mortal  back  into  the  immortal,  can  restore  this  rela- 
tion, and  only  when  the  Eternally  Womanly  leads 
him  upward  can  he  leave  sin  behind  ?  So  also  in 
"  Stella,"  Fernando  has  placed  himself  in  the  conflict 
between  passionate  love  and  recognized  self-imposed 
duty.     He  has  dared   to  play  with  tliis  greatest  of 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  241 

human  relations,  and  he  is  overwhelmed  by  the  forces 
he  has  set  in  motion.  For  this  wrong  no  earthly  rep- 
aration is  possible ;  property  may  be  restored,  slander 
may  be  refuted,  anger  may  be  atoned  for,  but  this 
wrong  cannot  be  righted.  No  unselfishness,  no  mag- 
nanimity, on  the  part  of  his  victims,  avails  aught : 
each  would  sacrifice  to  the  other,  but  neither  can  give 
what  she  cannot  hold,  and  only  Death,  which  dissolves 
all  earthly  ties,  can  make  new  life  possible.  In  the 
novellettes  in  "Wilhelm  Meister,"  Goethe  seems  to 
put  this  relation  of  love  and  marriage  in  ever}'-  possi- 
ble light :  they  are  like  the  changes  of  a  kaleidoscope, 
beautiful  but  fleeting.  He  seems  to  warn  against  his 
own  besetting  sin  of  mistaking  the  transient  for  the 
permanent.  With  this  intense  feeling  of  the  mission 
of  love  and  the  sanctity  of  marriage,  Goethe  himself 
never  had  a  full  and  perfect  relation  to  a  woman. 
The  force  of  his  being  was  expended  in  those  transi- 
tory affections  which,  as  Tennyson  says, 

"  Are  but  embassies  of  love 
To  tamper  with  the  feelings,  ere  he  found 
Empire  for  life." 

With  Frau  von  Stein  his  intellectual  yearning  for 

s)^mpathy  found  full  satisfaction,  and  his  Christiane 

gave  him  for  a  time  the  homelike  content,  more  often 

known  in  the  cottager's  hut  than  in  the  palace,  which 

he  had  never  had  before.     But  the  tragedy  of  his  life, 

so  often  referred  to  as  a  wonderfully  fortunate  one, 

was  just  here.     He  never  found  the  true  family  life, 

and,  as  husband  and  father,  shared  little  of  the  joy 

16 


242  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

which  makes  so  many  humble  lives  infinitely  blessed. 
Is  it  for  this  reason  that  he  has  never  been  able  to 
paint  a  successful,  happy  love,  but  in  the  simplicity 
of  peasant  life  in  "  Hermann  und  Dorothea,"  or  "  Die 
Geschwister,"  or  in  the  dim  perspective  of  history  in 
Gotz  and  his  faithful  wife  ? 

In  his  own  life,  domestic  love  took  on  a  very  quiet 
and  humble  form.  How  his  heart  must  have  longed 
for  this  life,  —  he  who  was  so  sensitive  to  tenderness, 
and  had  such  a  thirst  for  human  relation  !  Where 
shall  we  find  a  more  concise  and  comprehensive  ex- 
pression of  family  love  and  life  as  representing  the 
eternal  mysteries  of  creation,  than  in  the  words  of  the 
Chorus  after  the  birth  of  Euphorion  ? 

"  Love  in  human  wise  to  liless  us 
In  a  noble  pair  must  be  ; 
But  divinely  to  possess  us 

It  must  form  a  precious  Three." 

And  the  all-sufficiency  of  Love  is  told  in  simplest 

words : 

"All  we  seek  has  therefore  found  us, 
I  am  thiue  and  thou  art  mine  ; 
So  we  stand  as  Love  hath  bound  us, 
Other  fortune  we  resign." 

In  the  family  is  the  most  perfect  expression  of  the 
Eternal  Trinity,  that  great  mystic  doctrine  running 
through  many  religions,  which  has  been  so  dwarfed 
and  narrowed  by  being  made  individual  and  dogmatic. 
But  it  runs  as  the  simplest,  plainest  law  through 
mechanics  and  chemistry,  as  well  as  biology  and  met- 


BAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  243 

aphysics,  —  the  One,  the  Two,  the  resulting  Third,  — 
the  union  of  differences  in  likeness  producing  a  new- 
creation.  Goethe  saw  this,  and  if  he  fails  to  paint  it 
fully,  it  is  because  he  had  not  known  it  in  his  own 
experience. 

In  the  First  Part  of  "Faust,"  the  great  work  in 
which  Goethe  sought  to  read  the  riddle  of  life,  fail- 
ing, as  all  will  fail  till  life  is  fully  accomplished,  das 
Weihliclie  is  the  moving  power.  Faust  is  the  unre- 
lated man,  devoted  to  knowledge  only  for  himself. 
He  exhausts  every  source  of  learning  and  thought, 
only  to  find  himself  wholly  unfed  and  unsatisfied,  and 
is  ready  to  grant  any  terms  on  which  he  may  secure 
a  consciousness  of  life  and  joy.  He  makes  the  hasty 
compact  to  buy  what  a  true  faith  would  have  given 
him.  Woman  by  her  beauty  first  calls  him  out  of 
himself,  and  he  seeks  union  with  others.  In  the  First 
Part  he  asks  only  his  personal  gratification,  and  he 
cannot  enter  into  true  relation  with  others,  for  he  has 
not  found  himself  He  is  the  sport  of  unformed  de- 
sires, he  does  not  recognize  the  necessity  or  beauty 
of  law.  The  Devil  is  his  guide,  the  incarnate  spirit 
that  denies.  How  can  he  lead  him  to  true  love  ? 
It  is  the  simplest  feeling  of  attraction  to  a  person, 
not  any  ideal  relation  to  the  universal,  which  leads 
him  on. 

Heedlessly  he  breaks  the  highest  law  of  love, 
which  bids  us  seek  not  our  own  good,  but  the  welfare 
of  the  beloved ;  and  the  human  law  which  should  rep- 
resent the  inward  principle  revenges  itself  upon  him. 


244  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF  GOETHE. 

How  ?  Not  by  direct  infliction  of  outward  punish- 
ment, but  through  the  misery  of  the  beloved  one. 
Woman's  misery,  man's  degradation,  is  the  result  of 
the  broken  law  of  love.  The  redeemer  buys  with  his 
own  sacrifice  the  redemption  he  works  for  others. 
Faust  is  still  free  to  follow  his  selfish  course ;  but 
never  again  unconsciously :  the  gadfly  of  conscience 
is  aroused,  which  will  not  cease  to  sting  hira  till  he  is 
elevated  into  true  life.  Yet  in  spite  of  his  selfishness 
and  sin  he  has  loved ;  he  has  recognized  that  self  is 
not  all ;  he  has  known  the  highest  human  relation ; 
he  has  acknowledged  the  existence  of  somethinof 
not  himself,  yet  to  which  he  is  eternally  bound.  So 
he  is  led  out  of  abstraction  into  personality.  Even 
through  sin,  still  more  through  suffering,  he  has 
learned  the  lesson  of  relation  to  others,  which  in  the 
Second  Part  is  to  be  worked  out,  not  in  the  simplicity 
of  individual  love,  but  on  the  broad  scale  of  Human- 
ity. Through  all  the  wild  masquerading  of  its  many 
scenes,  we  find  him  learning  this  lesson.  He  seeks 
to  become  a  benefactor  to  mankind,  but  at  first  how 
wildly,  —  with  the  help  of  the  Devil !  The  scheme 
of  spreading  universal  happiness  by  producing  an 
abundance  of  paper  money,  devised  by  Mephistophe- 
les  and  since  followed  by  his  successors,  while  it  is 
undoubtedly  a  satire  on  South  Sea  and  other  wild 
financial  schemes,  may  also  fitly  represent  that  selfish 
benevolence  which  finds  pleasure  in  beholding  the 
transient  enjoyment  of  those  around  us,  whether  it 
is  based  on  good  or  evil.     The  women  see  the  char- 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  245 

lataiiry  of  the  great  mask,  and  mock  at  the  false 
magician  who  is  —  nothing ;  not  even  feeling  when 
one  pinches  him.  Here  in  homely  form  is  a  hint 
of  the  quality  of  Woman  which  is  expressed  in  the 
last  line.  The  Womanly  tests  life  by  a  more  delicate 
analysis  than  masculine  logic  supplies.  Woman  con- 
siders things  in  their  relations.  This  is  the  quality 
of  judgment  which  we  recognize  as  specially  wo- 
manly, and  which  has  been  manifested  on  a  large 
scale  by  queens  and  empresses,  as  in  every-day  life 
in  the  management  of  a  household  and  the  control 
of  children. 

The  mystical  charm  with  which  Goethe  loved  to 
surround  the  feminine,  while  keeping  its  peculiar 
function  ever  in  mind,  is  shown  by  his  introduction 
of  the  Mothers  in  "  Faust."  This  passage  has  been 
the  despair  of  commentators.  An  obscure  phrase  in 
Plutarch,  calling  the  Goddesses  "  the  Mothers,"  seems 
to  have  excited  his  imagination,  and  he  uses  this  term 
as  the  most  powerful  and  suggestive  of  names,  with- 
out feeling  called  upon  to  offer  any  explanation  of  it. 
Yet  it  has  a  power  for  Faust,  and  a  terror  even  for 
Mephistopheles,  who  may  well  feel  it  to  be  utterly 
outside  of  his  realm.  The  various  metaphysical  anal- 
yses of  this  phrase  seem  very  wide  of  the  mark ;  it 
is  the  all-including  comprehensiveness  of  the  expres- 
sion which  gives  it  a  charm  and  terror.  As  the  little 
child  believes  that  the  mother  can  answer  all  ques- 
tions and  satisfy  all  wants,  is  it  strange  that  man 
should  come  back   to  a  longing  for   the   motherlj 


246  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

power?  Goethe  has  said,  "  Express  thyself,  and  't  will 
a  riddle  be,"  —  this  simplest  of  all  words  is  full  of 
mystery  and  terror.  Why  should  Faust  be  appalled 
at  their  very  name  ?  Wliat  is  the  meaning  of  the 
key  which  is  to  lead  him  to  them  ?  Is  the  key  the 
childlike  trust  which  Faust  has  lost,  and  which  would 
make  motherhood  an  attraction,  and  not  a  terror  ? 
When  we  can  carry  our  desires  into  the  presence 
of  the  Divine  Motherhood,  they  must  have  become 
righteous  and  holy.  Faust  goes  to  the  mothers  to 
grant  the  fulfilment  of  his  longing  for  beauty  and 
love. 

Here  his  escape  from  the  power  of  Mephistophe- 
les  seems  to  begin.  It  has  already  become  another 
love  than  that  to  which  Mephistopheles  first  led 
him.  It  is  not  he  in  his  individual  being  who  is 
wedded  to  a  beautiful  maiden.  It  is  the  spirit  of  his 
country,  German  thought,  which  seeks  after  Greek 
beauty,  and  from  this  union  is  born  the  modern  poet. 
This  love  does  not  become  tragic  in  its  results,  like 
his  attraction  to  Margaret ;  it  is  indeed  only  an  image 
of  love,  but  it  truly  represents  it  as  not  for  themselves 
alone,  but  for  the  whole  of  Humanity. 

If  we  take  Helena  in  the  literary  sense  for  Classic 
culture,  while  Faust  represents  the  German,  may  not 
the  appeal  to  the  Mothers  represent  that  return  to 
the  old  primitive  thought,  the  universal  source,  which 
always  accompanies  every  new  radical  movement  in 
thought  ?  We  must  relate  our  special  movement  to 
the  universal,  and  the  new  must  strike  its  roots  deep 


i 


1  UNIVEESIT     ^ 


DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICEE.  ^^-"^^^-247 

into  the  old.  It  seems  hopeless  to  attempt  to  fathom 
the  precise  meaning  with  which  Goethe  uses  this 
phrase,  yet  it  is  certain  that  it  meant  a  great  deal  to 
him,  and  that  when  interpreted  by  his  own  voice  and 
manner  it  strongly  impressed  others.  Eckermann 
writes :  — 

"  To-day,  as  a  supplement  to  the  dinner,  Goethe  gave 
me  a  great  enjoymeut  by  reading  to  me  the  scene  where 
Faust  goes  to  the  Mothers.  The  new,  unsuspected  char- 
acter of  the  subject,  together  with  the  tone  and  manner  in 
which  Goethe  recited  the  scene,  took  hold  of  me  with  won- 
derful power,  so  that  I  found  myself  at  once  in  the  condi- 
tion of  Faust,  who  feels  a  shudder  creep  over  him  when 
Mephistopheles  makes  the  communication.  I  had  heard 
and  clearly  comprehended  the  description,  but  so  much  of 
it  remained  enigmatical  to  me  that  I  felt  myself  forced  to 
beg  Goethe  to  enlighten  me  a  little.  He  however,  accord- 
ing to  his  usual  habit,  assumed  a  mysterious  air,  looking 
at  me  with  wide-open  eyes,  and  repeating  the  words,  — 
'  The  Mothers !  Mothers  !     It  sounds  so  strange.'  " 

This  Second  Part  of  "  Faust "  seems  at  first  like 
a  wild  chaos.  In  it  are  the  riches  of  a  hundred 
dramas,  but  it  is  not  crystallized  into  clearness  and 
symmetry.  It  was  Goethe's  study  of  life,  and  he 
could  not  marshal  it  all  into  line,  as  a  lesser  man 
might  do  his  lesser  riches.  Yet  there  is  one  simple 
thought  running  through  it  aU,  and,  as  he  expresses 
it  in  the  last  grand  verse,  we  see  it  is  the  plainest 
religious  truth,  —  that  which  enters  into  every  faith, 
which   underlies   the   beautiful   in  art,  the  ideal  in 


248  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

philosophy,  the  essence  of  morality,  the  meaning  of 
life.  It  is  the  sense  of  the  relation  of  the  individual 
to  the  universal.  We  never  think,  never  can  think, 
of  the  feminine  alone.  It  is  not  what  separates  her 
from  others,  but  what  gives  the  power  of  union,  which 
makes  her  feminine,  and  so  creative.  And  the  mas- 
culine knows  itself  only  in  its  relation  to  the  femi- 
nine. So  it  is  that  the  eternally  feminine  "  draws  us 
by  sweet  leadings  "  of  beauty  to  love,  to  union,  to 
new  creation.  But  in  using  these  words,  we  must 
remember  that  these  human  forms  which  we  live 
among,  and  which  flit  past  us  like  the  changing 
phantoms  in  Goethe's  half-mocking  drama,  are  but 
shadows  and  types.  Sex,  as  we  see  it  gradually 
evolved  out  of  the  chemical  relations  of  the  mineral 
world,  the  fertilization  of  flowers,  the  wooing  of  the 
oriole  and  the  bobolink  in  the  spring-time,  the  chiv- 
alry of  the  cock,  and  the  fierce  jealousy  of  the  tiger, 
to  its  beautiful  outcome  in  the  highest  human  rela- 
tion, which  is  the  never-wearying  theme  of  romance 
and  poetry,  is  a  shadowing  forth  of  the  duality  in 
the  original  spirit  out  of  which  comes  the  creative 
energy  manifested  in  the  universe.  As  we  have 
seen,  this  double  strand  is  woven  in  and  out  through- 
out nature,  and  in  trying  to  trace  it  we  are  con- 
stantly bewildered  by  finding  its  place  and  attitude 
changing.  We  cry,  "  Lo  here !  and,  Lo  there  ! "  but 
like  the  kingdom  of  God,  it  is  within  us  and  found 
everywhere.  If  it  represents  duality,  it  equally  rep- 
resents unity  and  universality,  and  we  may  as  well 


BAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHE.  249 

divide  the  rainbow  by  arbitrary  lines,  as  seek  to  put 
asunder  those  differing  phases  of  His  creative  agency 
which  God  has  so  closely  joined  together.  Yet  the 
difference  of  sexes  is  as  expressive  and  necessary 
as  their  unity,  and  their  functions  cannot  be  con- 
founded. Mythology  has  made  woman  the  repre- 
sentative of  attraction  to  evil,  because  it  had  not 
learned  that  life  is  good ;  but  Goethe's  inspired  Muse, 
who  knew  that  secret,  and  held  the  Faust  to  be 
redeemed  who  had  at  last  found  it  good,  taught  that 
woman  leads  indeed  through  varied  and  dangerous 
paths,  but  still  leads  to  life  ;  and  it  is  a  grand  accept- 
ance of  life,  and  its  experience  and  its  teachings, 
which  bids  him  close  his  great  drama  with  a  recog- 
nition of  this  truth,  —  Das  Ewig  Wcibliche  zieht  uns 
liiiian. 


NOTE. 


As  the  various  reports  of  the  School  have  made  it 
apparent  that  the  doctrine  of  this  lecture  was  misun- 
derstood, I  have  added  the  following  Synopsis :  — 

There  is,  even  in  the  Divine  Nature,  as  we  are 
forced  to  conceive  it,  a  polarity,  or  power  of  differen- 
tiation which  is  eternal,  —  eivig. 

This  polarity  running  through  all  nature,  even  the 
inanimate  and  inorganic,  appears  as  sex,  —  suggested 
in  the  vegetable  kingdom,  and  slowly  evolved  in  the 


250  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

animal  world,  taking  its  most  complete  form  in  the 
Human  Being. 

Its  distinctive  characteristics  appear  as  impulse 
and  attraction.  Its  function  is  creation,  and  while 
the  masculine  is  stimulating  and  life-giving,  the 
feminine  is  receptive  and  productive. 

This  central  difference,  complicated  with  all  the 
circumstances  of  existence,  produces  many  secondary 
characteristics  illustrative  of  sex ;  but  these  secondary 
characteristics  are  in  the  process  of  evolution  un- 
stable and  interchangeable.  These  principles,  though 
separated  in  our  ultimate  thought,  are  constantly 
blended  in  manifestation.  Nature  works  to  produce 
embryo  wholes,  and  not  ever-widening  monstrosities. 
Hence,  while  our  ideal  of  das  mannliche  and  das  weih- 
liche  may  be  sharply  defined  as  force  and  attraction, 
or  centrifugal  and  centripetal,  or  Justice  and  Mercy, 
its  manifestation  in  persons  is  rarely  distinct ;  but  by 
the  double  descent  the  two  are  blended  in  every 
individual,  and  in  the  highest  natures  the  most 
perfectly. 

The  office  of  mortal  life  is  to  develop  the  spiritual 
nature  by  the  constant  manifestation,  action,  and 
reaction  of  these  principles  on  each  other,  so  as  to 
attain  the  widest  universality,  and  the  most  perfect 
unity.  They  play  an  equal  part  in  the  great  drama 
of  Life ;  but  as  the  feminine  represents  attraction, 
this  is  the  leading  principle  which  draws  us  upward 
and   on. 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  251 


IX. 
THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES. 

By  S.  H.  emery,  Jr. 

This  special  creation  of  the  great  artist,  whose 
genius  and  work  are  the  principal  theme  of  this  ses- 
sion of  the  Summer  School  of  Philosophy,  belongs  to 
that  particular  form  of  art  which  is  named  "  The 
Xovel."  Perhaps  it  is  the  only  work  of  our  author 
which  can  properly  be  so  classified.  Goethe  himself 
seems  to  have  been  in  doubt  about  the  appropriate- 
ness of  the  title  to  this  work,  for  he  is  reported  by 
Eckermann  as  saying,  with  reference  to  the  sketch 
of  the  Child  and  the  Lion,  called  "  A  Tale "  in  Dr. 
Hedfje's  edition  of  Goethe's  "Works  :  — 

"  I  '11  tell  you  what,  we  will  call  it  '  The  Novel ' ;  for 
what  is  a  novel  but  a  peculiar  and  as  yet  unheard-of 
eveut  ]  This  is  the  proper  meaning  of  this  name ;  and 
much  which  in  Germany  passes  as  a  novel  is  no  novel  at 
all,  but  a  mere  narrative,  or  whatever  else  you  like  to 
call  it.  In  that  original  sense  of  an  unheard-of  event, 
even  the  '  Elective  Affinities '  may  be  called  a  novel." 

Goethe's  definition  of  the  novel  does  not  distin- 
cruish  it  from  the  romance,  nor  from  short  tales  and 


252  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

sketches,  such  as  the  work  the  name  for  which  he 
was  considering.  A  brief  consideration  of  the  place 
of  the  novel  in  the  system  of  art  is  not  impertinent 
here. 

The  novel,  as  a  work  of  art,  belongs  to  the  domain 
of  Poetry,  and  therefore,  so  far  as  the  material  it 
uses  is  concerned,  is  capable  of  the  most  complete 
expression  of  the  highest  ideal  in  art.  It  has  the 
external  characteristics  of  the  prose  form,  but  is 
essentially  poetic.  Goethe  says  that  the  "Elective 
Affinities  "  is  a  poetic  production.  The  fundamental 
art  element  in  poetry  is  not  the  rhyme,  the  rhythm, 
or  the  harmony  of  the  verse,  but  the  image.  The 
true  is  therein  represented  in  an  image ;  not  an 
actually  existent,  external,  spatial  image,  but  an 
internal  form  of  the  imagination, —  "images  preserved 
in  the  spirit  and  recalled  by  it " ;  this  makes  the 
presentation  artistic.  Art  manifests  the  whole  in 
the  part.  This  fundamental  element  of  art  is  the 
basis  of  the  novel  in  point  of  form. 

In  point  of  content,  it  belongs  to  that  phase  of  art 
which  is  called  by  Hegel  "  Eomantic  Art."  It  por- 
trays the  individual  working  out  the  problem  of  his 
spiritual  development,  —  either,  on  the  one  side,  sub- 
jective passions,  caprices,  desires,  even  good  but  mis- 
taken intentions,  on  the  other  side  the  universal 
and  eternal  verities,  into  harmony  with  which  the 
individual  must  come ;  or,  with  equal  validity,  on 
the  one  side  the  universal  and  eternal  as  realized  in 
the  individual  spirit,  on  the  other  side,  the  exter- 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  253 

nally  capricious  and  accidental:  but  in  either  case 
it  portrays  a  struggle  for  spiritual  harmony. 

The  novel  proper  is  of  modern  English  origin, 
dating  from  about  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  is  distinguished  from  the  romance, 
which  is  a  narrative  of  wonders,  strange,  improba- 
ble events ;  while  the  novel  accommodates  itself,  for 
the  most  part,  to  ordinary  society  and  the  ordinary 
course  of  human  affairs,  seeking  to  draw  attention  to, 
and  excite  our  intei-est  in,  the  collisions  of  the  sub- 
jective with  the  objective.  A  writer  in  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica  mentions  as  a  fact  that  the  rise  of 
the  novel  is  coincident  with  the  decline  of  the  drama, 
and  attributes  both  to  the  change  in  the  spirit  of  the 
age.  Goethe  in  "Meister"  expresses  the  true  dis- 
tinction between  the  novel  and  the  drama  in  point 
of  content  and  method.     He  says  :  — 

"In  the  novel  as  well  as  in  the  drama,  it  is  human 
nature  and  human  action  that  we  see.  .  .  .  But  in  the 
novel  it  is  chiefly  sentiments  and  events  that  are  exhibited  ; 
in  the  drama  it  is  character  and  deeds.  The  novel  must 
go  slowly  forward,  and  the  sentiments  of  the  hero,  by 
one  means  or  another,  must  restrain  the  tendency  of 
the  whole  to  unfold  itself  and  to  conclude.  The  drama, 
on  the  other  hand,  must  hasten,  and  the  character  of 
the  hero  must  press  forward  to  the  end ;  it  does  not  re- 
strain, but  is  restrained." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  for  the  modern  English 
mind  the  novel  is  a  more  effective  form  of  art  than 
the   drama ;    perhaps   because   the   novel,   as   being 


254  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

nearer  to  the  verge  of  art,  is  better  adapted  to  a 
prosaic  age  and  nation.  The  wider  range  of  incident 
and  more  minute  analysis  of  character  are  more  in 
accordance  with  the  disposition  and  taste  of  a  highly- 
civilized  people,  than  the  strong  situations  and  pow- 
erful effects  which  are  necessary  to  the  drama.  The 
picture  of  life  presented  is  also  more  true  to  the 
present  reality,  and  therefore  takes  hold  of  the  in- 
terest more  readily. 

The  "  Elective  Affinities "  has  then  a  special  in- 
terest, as  an  example  of  a  form  of  art  more  distinct- 
ively peculiar  than  any  other  to  our  time,  and  to 
the  English  consciousness.  I  have  said,  also,  that 
it  is  perhaps  the  only  work  of  our  author  which  is, 
strictly  speaking,  a  novel,  as  we  ordinarily  under- 
stand the  term.  The  novel  proper  falls  between  the 
romance  and  the  disquisition,  and  the  "Elective 
Affinities"  seems  to  occupy  this  middle  ground  more 
consistently  tlian  any  other  work  of  Goethe.  It  has 
variety  of  place,  time,  action,  and  persons,  to  distin- 
guish it  from  a  sketch  or  tale  ;  it  presents  a  picture 
of  life,  which  seems  true  to  the  ordinary  conditions 
of  the  place  and  time  wherein  the  scene  is  laid ;  its 
incidents  are  for  the  most  part  commonplace,  rather 
than  romantic,  in  the  sense  of  startling,  wonderful, 
unreal ;  and  its  story  does  not  impress  the  reader  as 
a  merely  artificial  and  external  thread,  on  which  the 
author  has  strung  disquisitions  upon  every  imagina- 
ble subject.  On  the  contrary  the  story  furnishes,  as 
in  a  novel  it  should,  the  necessary  field  for  the  col- 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  255 

lisions  sought  to  be  portrayed.     A  critic  has  said  of 
Goethe's  novels  generally  :  — 

"  They  are  iugenious  speculations  on  painting,  agri- 
culture, landscape-gardening,  etc.,  connected  by  a  thread 
of  mystical  naiTative,  and  introducing  us  to  a  set  of  be- 
ings without  the  least  trace  of  reality  about  them,  who 
all  appear  to  be  playing  some  theatrical  part  in  a  dreamy 
representation  of  life,  which  seems  to  have  no  intelligible 
object." 

But  this  criticism  is  entirely  inappropriate  to  the 
"  Elective  Affinities,"  though  that  has  episodical  pas- 
sages, which  might  be  called  "  ingenious  speculations  " 
on  gardening,  architecture,  painting,  chemistry,  and 
other  subjects ;  and  it  doubtless  in  a  deep  way  justi- 
fies Goethe's  statement  that  it  is  a  novel  because  it  is 
a  before  unheard-of  event.  The  critic  proceeds  to 
say:  — 

"  A  novel  which  does  not  explain  its  purpose  without 
a  commentary  seems  to  violate  the  essential  laws  of  such 
compositions ;  but  a  novel  in  regard  to  the  object  of 
which  no  two  commentators  agree,  is  an  anomaly  in 
litei'ature." 

If  this  criticism  were  to  be  accepted  as  final,  it 
would  dispose  of  the  claim  of  the  "  Elective  Affinities  " 
to  be  considered  a  novel,  for  there  has  certainlv  been  a 
wide  disagreement  among  the  commentators  as  to  its 
purpose  ;  but  it  very  naturally  occurs  to  one  that  this 
result  may  rather  be  the  fault  of  the  commentators 
than  of  the  novel.     It  must  have  been  surprising  to 


256  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

Goethe,  for  he  seems  to  have  doubted  whether  he  had 
not  made  his  meaning  too  plain,  to  the  detriment  of 
his  art.     Soret  reports  him  as  saying,  — 

"  The  only  production  of  greater  extent,  in  which  I  am 
conscious  of  having  labored  to  set  forth  a  pervading  idea 
is  probably  my  'Elective  Affinities.'  This  novel  has  thus 
become  comprehensible  to  the  understanding ;  but  I  will 
not  say  that  it  is  therefore  better.  I  am  rather  of  the 
opinion,  that  the  more  incommensurable  and  the  more 
incomprehensible  to  the  understanding  a  poetic  produc- 
tion is,  so  much  the  better  it  is." 

You  will  notice  that  Goetlie's  conception  of  tlie 
proper  aim  of  the  artist  in  this  regard  differs  funda- 
mentally from  that  of  his  critic ;  hence,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  critic  should  not  have  been  pleased 
with  the  results. 

With  these  preliminary  general  observations  we 
will  proceed  to  an  examination  of  the  "  sentiments 
and  events "  which  Goethe  has  portrayed  in  tlie 
"Elective  Affinities,"  reserving  our  consideration  of 
the  special  content  of  this  novel  for  the  conclusion. 
We  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Goethe,  that  the  novel 
was  written  with  a  conscious  pervading  purpose,  and 
we  must  try  to  ascertain  what  the  purpose  was,  or 
better,  perhaps,  what  has  really  been  done ;  for  the 
purpose  in  and  of  itself  might  be  accidental  and 
temporary. 

The  title  "Elective  Affinities"  Goethe  justifies, 
early  in  the  work,  in  a  conversation  between  Edward, 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  257 

Charlotte,  aud  the  Captain,  in  the  course  of  which  it 
is  explained  that  "  elective  affinity  "  is  the  technical 
scientific  term  applied  to  those  instances  of  chemical 
action  where,  on  the  presentation  to  a  compound  sub- 
stance of  a  third,  one  of  the  elements  of  the  com- 
pound will  leave  its  combination  and  combine  with 
the  third,  thus  exhibiting  a  natural  election  between 
the  two  possible  combinations.  The  most  important 
and  remarkable  cases  of  this  action  are  where  the 
separation  and  uniting  are  both  double ;  that  is,  where 
two  compounds,  on  being  brought  together,  each  di- 
vide and  reunite  with  change  of  partners.  This  is 
chemically  analogous  to  what  sometimes  happens  in 
human  society,  when  the  casual  introduction  of  a 
third  person  utterly  destroys  a  connection,  apparently 
indissoluble,  between  two,  through  presenting  oppor- 
tunity for  a  new  and  naturally  more  urgent  combina- 
tion; but  Charlotte  warns  us  that  man  is  placed 
many  steps  above  chemical  elements,  and  that  he 
will  do  well  to  consider  carefully  the  validity  of  the 
analogy  as  applied  to  himself.  The  incidents  of  the 
novel  exhibit  the  workings  of  a  double  elective  affin- 
ity in  the  human  sphere :  hence  the  name.  The  scene 
of  the  story  is  the  estate  of  a  German  nobleman,  and 
the  time  probably  contemporaneous  with  the  writing. 
Neither  year  nor  real  location  is  anywhere  mentioned. 
Solger  wrote,  in  a  letter  to  Tieck,  an  elaborate  crit- 
icism of  the  "Elective  Affinities,"  which  interested 
and  pleased  Goethe,  who  says,  "  It  would  not  be  easy 
to  say  anything  better  about  that  novel."     In  the 

17 


258  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

course  of  this  critical  survey  Solger  said,  "  The  facts 
of  the  '  Elective  Affinities '  had  their  oerm  in  the  na- 
ture  of  all  the  characters."  We  will  therefore  con- 
sider the  principal  cliaracters  before  examining  the 
incidents.  They  interest  us,  not  only  in  themselves, 
but  as  general  types. 

Edward  was  the  only,  and  consequently  spoiled, 
child  of  wealthy  parents,  from  whom  large  posses- 
sions had  descended  to  hira.  In  early  life  he  had 
met  and  loved  Charlotte,  who  loved  him.  He  mar- 
ried, however,  through  the  persuasion  of  his  parents 
and  while  dissatisfied  with  Charlotte's  reserve,  a 
wealthy  lady  far  older  than  himself,  who  petted  and 
indulged  him  in  every  wa}^  and,  dying,  left  him  free, 
in  the  prime  of  life,  to  return  to  Charlotte,  whom  he 
married ;  and  he  is  introduced  at  the  beginning  of 
the  story  as  living  with  Charlotte  alone,  soon  after 
their  marriage,  at  his  ancestral  castle.  He  is  appar- 
ently "  equal  to  all  contingencies  and  changes,  with 
desires  never  excessive,  but  multiple  and  various ; 
free-hearted,  generous,  brave,  at  times  even  noble " ; 
he  has  had  lai-ge  experience  of  life,  at  court,  in  the 
army,  and  in  travelling,  but  has  never  been  thwarted, 
and  has  not  learned  self-restraint.  His  return  to 
Charlotte  was  due  to  a  sort  of  romantic  remembrance 
of  their  early  love,  and  to  a  desire  to  settle  down  qui- 
etly to  a  delicious  leisure  with  a  pleasant  companion, 
rather  than  to  a  strong,  absorbing  passion.  He  is 
of  good  disposition,  and  has  not  fallen  into  vices,  but 
he  has  little  constancy  or  perseverance;  even   his 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  259 

flute-playing  is  not  good,  because,  although  he  would 
for  a  little  while  prosecute  it  with  industry,  he  would 
soon  tire  of  the  effort.  His  favorite  method  of  decis- 
ion as  to  courses  of  action,  where  decision  is  difficult, 
is  to  submit  the  matter  to  chance.  He  is  amiable 
and  considerate,  but  impulsive,  ardent,  and  youthful ; 
without  substantial  character,  settled  convictions,  or 
high  purposes.  He  is  in  danger  of  becoming  a 
drunkard  when  things  go  against  him.  He  has  never 
learned  to  forego  his  immediate  desire,  is  vehement 
and  obstinate,  and  thinks  life  valueless  unless  he  can 
have  what,  at  the  moment,  seems  to  him  a  necessity 
of  his  nature.  Hence,  he  is  essentially  extravagant, 
sacrificing  always  the  distant  to  the  near.  He  pre- 
fers death  to  disappointment  in  love.  Goethe  says, 
speaking  of  Solger's  criticism  of  Edward  :  — 

"  I  do  not  quarrel  with  him  because  he  cannot  endure 
Edward.  I  myself  cannot  endure  him,  but  was  obliged 
to  make  him  such  a  man  in  order  to  bring  out  my  fact. 
He  is,  besides,  very  true  to  natui-e ;  for  you  find  many 
people  in  the  higher  ranks  with  whom,  quite  like  him, 
obstinacy  takes  the  place  of  character." 

Charlotte  is  a  quite  opposite  character.  She  is  a 
prudent,  wise,  fore-looking  person.  Her  instincts  are 
conservative  and  tenacious  of  institutional  require- 
ments, and  she  recognizes  that  the  family  is  woman's 
special  institution.  She  is  domestic,  careful,  and  eco- 
nomical ;  she  keeps  the  accounts  and  pays  the  bills. 
Perhaps  she  is   more  excitable  and  quicker  to  feel 


260  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

even  than  Edward,  but  with  power  of  self-restraint, 
and  always  ready  to  subordinate  her  feelings  to  her 
judgment.  She  does  not  willingly  allow  herself  to 
be  surprised  into  emotion.  With  tact  and  self-pos- 
session to  see  and  do  the  right  thing  in  any  emer- 
gency she  unites  self-sacrifice,  so  that  she  is  willing 
to  do  what  she  believes  to  be  right,  at  whatever  cost  to 
herself;  with  fortitude  also,  so  that  she  can  insist 
upon  the  present  suffering  of  those  she  loves,  for  their 
ultimate  best  good,  even  in  spite  of  their  shrinking, 
added  to  the  pain  of  her  own  heart.  She  is  a  con- 
stant and  reserved,  not  a  passionate  and  effusive, 
lover.  One  can  believe  that  when  she  gave  her  hand, 
after  Edward's  first  marriage,  without  any  special  mo- 
tive, to  an  excellent  man,  whom  she  could  respect 
if  she  could  not  love,  she  did  it,  not  because  she 
had  forgotten  Edward,  but  because  she  thought  it 
unwise  to  sacrifice  her  life  to  a  hopeless  passion.  It 
would  seem  that  she  should  have  been  a  devoted 
mother,  yet  she  is  not ;  and  possibly  Goethe  means 
thereby  to  intimate  that  maternal  love  and  devotion 
are  dependent  upon  supreme  love  for  the  father,  which 
was  lacking  in  Charlotte's  case.  However  this  may 
be,  Charlotte  is  a  conscientious  mother,  but  not 
passionately  fond  of  her  children.  Her  chief  weak- 
ness lies  in  allowing  herself  to  be  over-persuaded 
against  her  instincts  and  judgment.  When  Edward 
returned  to  her,  and  urged  marriage,  she  hesitated  : 
she  felt  that  it  was  not  prudent ;  that  during  the 
interval  of  their  separation  she  had  outgrown  him. 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  261 

though  they  were  of  about  the  same  age,  and  that 
the  love  of  their  youth  had  changed  to  friendship ; 
yet  his  urgent  solicitation  overcame  her  doubts.  So 
too  when  Edward  impulsively  proposed  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  third  person  into  their  home,  she  said,  "  My 
feeling  is  against  this  plan ;  I  have  an  instinct  which 
tells  me  no  good  will  come  of  it " ;  yet  she  yielded. 
From  these  two  concessions  arise  the  complications 
of  the  story. 

The  Captain  is  a  man  of  affliirs,  reserved,  laconic, 
sedate,  accomplished,  and  self-restrained.  Up  to  the 
time  when  Edward  invites  him  to  the  castle,  he  has 
found  no  situation  in  life  which  he  considers  worthy 
of  his  own  ability  and  accomplishments  ;  and  al- 
though he  is  not  wealthy,  finding  strict  economy  and 
occasional  assistance  from  his  friend  Edward  neces- 
sary to  the  maintenance  of  his  accustomed  style  of 
living,  he  will  not  accept  offered  positions  which  seem 
to  him  not  suitable  to  enlist  all  his  energies,  in  direc- 
tions where  he  can  accomplish  substantial,  perma- 
nent benefit  to  the  world.  He  is  orderly,  methodical, 
industrious,  persistent,  laborious,  tireless,  and  consci- 
entious in  his  work ;  never  willing  to  leave  undone 
what  he  has  begun,  or  to  surrender  a  position  into 
incompetent  hands,  —  despising  a  man  who  wishes 
to  insure  that  he  shall  be  appreciated  and  missed 
through  the  failure  of  those  who  have  displaced  him. 
His  passions  are  substantially  under  his  control,  and 
we  are  not  surprised  to  find  him  urging  upon  Edward 
the  claims  of  institutions  and  society  as  paramount 


262  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

to  individual  inclination,  by  all  the  arguments  of  a 
mature,  self-poised  man  of  the  world,  though  success 
would  destroy  the  Captain's  own  hopes. 

Ottilie  is  the  most  interesting  and  the  most  attract- 
ive character  in  the  novel.  She  is  introduced  to  us 
as  a  young  girl  at  school,  and  Goethe  describes  her 
character  as  it  appears  to  the  Mother  Superior,  who 
does  not  love  her,  and  to  the  Assistant,  who  does. 
She  is  an  orphan,  has  been  adopted  by  Charlotte, 
who  is  her  aunt  and  was  her  mother's  most  intimate 
friend,  and  has  been  placed  at  the  school  with  Luci- 
ana,  the  daughter  of  Cliarlotte.  The  Lady  Superior 
says  of  Ottilie,  "  She  is  always  unassuming,  always 
ready  to  oblige  others  ;  but  it  is  not  pleasant  to  see 
her  so  timid,  so  almost  servile."  Slie  thinks  her  too 
abstemious  as  to  personal  comfort  and  adornment, 
in  her  eating,  drinking,  and  dressing ;  but  says, 
"  She  keeps  her  things  very  nice  and  clean,"  The 
Lady  Superior's  suggestion  as  to  Ottilie's  haljit  of 
abstinence  from  proper  food  is  obviously  intended 
to  prevent  the  misapprehension  that  Ottilie,  at  the 
crisis  of  her  life,  wilfully  committed  suicide  by  star- 
vation. 

At  the  school  examination  Ottilie  utterly  fails,  and 
the  Assistant  tells  us  why.  She  is  very  slow  to  learn, 
and  cannot  learn  at  all  by  rote.  Everything  must 
come  to  her  by  slow,  successive  steps,  and  with  the 
logical  connection  perfectly  explicit  and  fully  seized. 
She  learns  like  one  who  is  to  educate,  and  her  pro- 
gress, though    slow,   is  sure.      I)Ut  brilliancy  at  au 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  263 

examination  is  not  possible  to  her.  She  is  inevitably 
behind  her  companions  in  superficial  acquisition,  and 
besides,  when  she  is  asked  a  question  about  what  she 
does  know,  she  seems  to  know  nothing;  even  her 
handwriting  exhibits  this  slowness  and  stiffness, 
though  it  is  not  without  character.  The  Assistant 
excuses  the  examiners  for  their  lack  of  appreciation 
of  Ottilie,  for  it  is  their  function  to  appraise  accom- 
plishments, not  capabilities ;  yet  he  is  sure  that  she 
has  been  born  for  the  good  and  happiness  of  others, 
and  assuredly  also  for  her  own,  and  that  the  fruits  of 
her  labors  will  develop  th,emselves  sooner  or  later 
into  a  beautiful  life. 

Goethe  brings  the  saintliness  of  Ottilie  into  prom- 
inence by  the  Assistant's  description  of  a  saintly 
gesture,  which  is  habitual  to  her;  and  he  tells  us 
that  when,  in  the  Young  Architect's  tableau,  she  ap- 
peared as  the  Mother  of  God,  "  she  excelled  all  that 
any  painter  has  represented."  We  find  that  Ottilie 
is  beautiful  in  person,  affectionate,  and  appreciative ; 
that  she  has  that  exceedingly  agreeable  faculty  of  en- 
tertaining one  by  her  listening  ;  that  in  the  domestic 
sphere  she  is  very  quick  to  learn  and  very  skilful  in 
directive  power,  knowing  how  to  direct,  and  able  also 
to  set  right  herself  anything  undone  or  wrongly  done  ; 
very  methodical  she  is  too,  dividing  her  day  and 
assigning  to  each  division  its  own  labors.  The  whole 
management  of  the  household  is  soon  given  up  to  her ; 
even  Charlotte's  child  is  her  especial  care.  She  is  a 
delightful  companion  for  both  women  and  men,  and 


264  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

at  Charlotte's  request  makes  for  herself  most  tasteful 
dresses.  Goethe  says  she  becomes  thus  more  and 
more  a  delight  to  all  who  behold  her,  for  human 
beauty  appeals  both  to  the  outward  and  to  the  in- 
ward sense,  and  "  whoever  looks  upon  it  is  charmed 
against  the  breath  of  evil  and  feels  in  harmony  with 
himself  and  with  the  world."  She  is  exceedingly 
and  increasingly  anxious  to  be  of  service,  —  half  a 
word  is  enough  for  her  here ;  "  with  her  calm  attentive- 
ness,  and  her  easy,  unexcited  activity,  she  is  always 
the  same ;  sitting,  rising  up,  going,  coming,  fetching, 
carrying,  returning  to  her  place  again,  all  in  the  most 
perfect  repose,"  —  constant  change,  constant  agreeable 
movement,  yet  always  a  calm  placidity.  Her  desire 
to  serve  is  excessive  and  needs  restraint,  appearing 
servile  to  one  not  appreciating  its  motive,  as  it  did  to 
the  Lady  Superior.  She  alone,  of  all  the  characters, 
unless  perhaps  the  Young  Architect,  seems  to  have 
religious  sentiment ;  she  feels  the  pervading  presence 
of  God,  sees  His  hand  in  her  aflflictions,  and  asks  His 
aid  and  comfort.  Her  artistic  talent  is  quite  remark- 
able, though  it  does  not  rise  to  genius.  She  has  the 
clairvoyant  temperament,  can  see  her  lover  by  second- 
sight,  and  feels  buried  treasures.  She  is  so  attractive 
to  men  that  in  any  company  she  is  the  centre  of 
attraction.  The  Captain,  the  Count,  and  the  Baron 
all  seek  her  society,  and  the  Assistant  and  the  Young 
Architect,  besides  Edward,  are  her  lovers.  Yet  their 
love  is  unsought,  and  is  a  surprise  to  her.  There  is 
no  trace  of  the  coquette  in  her  character.     Goethe 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES,  265 

indicates  the  universality  of  her  fascination  by  mak- 
ing her  so  attractive  to  such  different  men. 

Ottilie's  love  is  so  unselfish  that  she  could  sur- 
render Edward  willingly,  if  his  best  good  demanded 
the  sacrifice,  while  Edward's  love  is  intensely  selfish. 
It  seems  as  if  Goethe  gave  to  Ottilie  every  character- 
istic of  body>  mind,  and  spirit  which  he  considered 
desirable  in  a  woman.  When  Ottilie  died,  all  the 
people  followed,  or  rather  crowded  around,  her  bier ; 
men,  women,  boys,  and  especially  the  girls  who  had 
been  her  pupils,  —  there  was  not  one  among  them 
all  unmoved.  Even  her  lifeless  body  had  the  saintly 
virtue  of  healing,  so  that  he  who  touched  it  was  re- 
stored to  health,  and  great  crowds  made  pilgrimages 
to  her  tomb  as  to  the  shrine  of  a  saint. 

Lewes  says  of  Ottilie's  Diary,  that  it  gives  us,  in- 
stead of  the  impassioned  feelings  of  a  young  girl,  the 
thoughts  of  an  old  man.  Goethe  himself  says  that 
the  larger  proportion  of  the  sentences  could  not  have 
arisen  from  her  own  reflection,  but  m^^st  have  been 
copied  from  something  which  took  her  fancy.  There 
are  parts  of  the  Diary,  however,  which  are  evidently 
intended  as  revelations  of  Ottilie's  own  feelings,  and 
these  exhibit  the  patient  waiting  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  her.  There  are  no  passionate  longings  for 
immediate  possession  of  her  lover;  she  is  content 
to  look  forward  to  lying  side  by  side  with  him  in  the 
grave.  The  impetuous,  vehement  Bettine  writes  to 
Goethe,  in  regard  to  Ottilie :  "  It  is  not  maidenly  for 
her  to  leave  her  lover,  and  not  to  wait  from  him  the 


266  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

unfolding  of  her  fate ;  it  is  not  womanly  that  she 
does  not  consider  his  fate  alone."  It  were  evident 
enough  without  this  criticism  that  Bettine  is  not  the 
original  of  Ottilie.  It  lies  in  Ottilie's  nature  that 
her  very  innocence  should  expose  her  to  the  fatal 
entanglement  of  a  love  impossible  of  realization  on 
earth.  With  her  deep,  undemonstrative  nature,  her 
surrender  to  the  guidance  of  others,  her  desire  to  do 
right,  her  little  self-reliance,  but  great  capacity  si- 
lently to  endure,  she  is  sure,  if  she  love  unwisely,  to 
die  for  love.  One  feels  her  fascination,  and  can  pardon 
her  mistake. 

The  four  characters  already  considered  are  the 
principal  persons  of  the  story ;  their  sentiments  are 
the  theme,  and  the  events  are  important  only  as  they 
affect  these  persons.  The  other  characters,  though 
subordinate,  are  very  interesting,  and  worthy  of  seri- 
ous study,  but  we  must  at  this  time  dismiss  them 
hurriedly. 

Mittler  is  a  unique  creation,  and  one  would  sup- 
pose hardly  to  be  met  with  in  real  life ;  yet  Goethe 
says  of  this  character,  that  "  a  person  whom  he  had 
never  seen  or  known  in  his  life  had  supposed  the 
character  of  Mittler  to  be  meant  for  himself"  He 
adds,  "  There  must  be  some  truth  in  this  character, 
and  it  must  have  existed  more  than  once  in  the 
world."  He  is,  as  his  name  indicates,  a  mediator,  (his 
only  business  in  life  being  to  settle  disputes,)  and 
he  serves  two  important  purposes.  Into  his  mouth 
Goethe  puts  his  own  views  of  the  marriage  relation, 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  267 

in  some  of  its  aspects,  and,  through  Mittler's  inability 
to  give  any  real  assistance  when  it  is  most  needed, 
Goethe  exhibits  the  insufficiency  of  external  media- 
tion for  the  solution  of  internal  problems. 

The  Assistant  is  a  laborious,  pains-taking  teacher, 
who  loves  Ottilie,  not  with  vehement  passion,  but 
with  deep-seated  regard,  based  on  association  and 
careful  observation  of  her  character.  He  thinks  she 
would  make  an  excellent  teacher's  wife.  He  can  wait 
however,  and  does  wait  forever,  without  apparently 
being  much  the  worse  for  it.  He  would  undoubtedly 
have  made  Ottilie  a  good  husband,  but  would  hardly 
have  satisfied  any  heart-hunger.  His  great  gift  is  to 
talk  well,  and  to  treat  in  his  conversation  of  men 
and  human  relations,  particularly  in  reference  to  the 
cultivation  of  young  people.  He  is  absorbed  in  his 
vocation,  and  Goethe  attributes  to  him  many  pro- 
found observations  on  teaching. 

The  Young  Architect,  though  a  subordinate  charac- 
ter in  the  incidents  of  the  story,  is  placed  by  Solger 
"high  above  all;  because  while  all  the  other  persons 
of  the  novel  show  themselves  loving  and  weak,  he 
alone  remains  strong  and  free  ;  and  the  beauty  of  his 
nature  consists  not  so  much  in  this,  that  he  does 
not  fall  into  the  errors  of  the  other  characters,  but  in 
this,  that  the  poet  has  made  him  so  noble  that  he 
cannot  fall  into  them."  Goethe,  commenting  on  this, 
says  to  Eckermann,  "  that  is  really  very  fine  " ;  and 
Eckermann  responds,  "I  have  felt  the  importance 
and  amiability  of  the  Architect's  character ;    but  I 


268  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

never  remarked  that  he  was  so  very  excellent,  just 
because  by  his  very  nature  he  could  not  fall  into  those 
bewilderments  of  love."  To  which  Goethe  replies, 
"  No  wonder,  for  I  myself  never  thought  of  it  when  I 
was  creating  him.  Yet  Solger  is  right ;  this  certainly 
is  his  character."  So  Goethe  bears  testimony  to  that 
unconscious  element  in  the  creative  activity  of  the 
artist  by  which  he  "builded  better  than  he  knew."  It 
is  true,  therefore,  that  it  is  much  wiser  to  seek  the 
content  of  the  created  work  of  art  in  the  work  itself, 
than  to  search  the  memoirs  of  the  artist  for  his  pur- 
pose, though  that  may  have  human  interest  also.  It  is 
the  function  of  the  Young  Architect  to  restore.  He 
has  a  great  collection  of  imitations  of  and  designs  from 
old  monuments  and  vases,  and  of  outlines  and  figures 
traced  from  original  ancient  pictures.  The  character 
of  the  collection  indicates  that  purity,  reverence,  tran- 
quillity, are  the  prominent  characteristics  of  the  col- 
lector. The  fantastic  and  sentimental  in  art  are  not 
in  accordance  with  his  taste,  but  he  delights  in  repro- 
ducing the  placid,  innocent,  satisfied,  pious  happiness 
of  the  saints.  In  this  spirit  he  restores  the  church 
and  chapel;  but  as  he  is  only  a  dilettante  in  painting, 
he  makes  no  attempt  at  originality,  and  he  is  so  sus- 
ceptible to  the  influence  of  his  companionship  with 
Ottilie,  that  aU  the  faces  he  paints  resemble  her.  To 
him  Ottilie  is  the  saint;  in  her  the  right  thing  is 
innate.  His  devotion  is  so  deep  and  true,  that  one 
feels  his  love  ought  to  have  been  requited.  Certainly, 
of  Ottilie's  lovers  he  was  far  the  most  worthy  of  her 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  269 

love.  But  Solger's  estimate  of  his  nobility,  wliich 
protects  him  from  the  errors  of  the  other  characters, 
seems  justified.  When  his  work  is  done,  he  departs, 
lingering  to  be  sure  till  he  forces  himself  away,  feeling 
that  he  can  endure  his  disappointment  better  at  a 
distance ;  yet  he  goes  with  only  a  half-melancholy 
feeling,  bravely  resolving,  one  can  believe,  to  conquer 
what  cannot  be  satisfied.  He  returns  to  stand,  "  in 
the  vigor  of  youth  and  grace,  with  his  arms  drooping 
and  his  hands  clasped  piteously  together,  motionless, 
with  head  and  eye  inclined  over  Ottilie's  inanimate 
body,"  and  to  think  of  "  the  rare,  sweet,  lovely  virtues 
whose  peaceful  workings  the  thirsty  world  had  wel- 
comed, while  it  had  them,  with  gladness  and  joy,  and 
now  was  sorrowing  for  them  with  unavailing  desire  " ; 
but  as  he  sees  "  his  beautiful  friend  floating  before 
him  in  the  new  life  of  a  higher  world,"  his  tears  cease 
flowing,  his  sorrow  grows  lighter,  and,  reverentially 
taking  his  leave  of  Ottilie,  he  rides  away  into  the 
night,  we  hope,  consoled. 

Luciana,  the  daughter  of  Charlotte  and  the  excel- 
lent njan  whom  she  "  respected,  if  she  did  not  love," 
is  a  foil  to  Ottilie.  Ottilie  is  modest,  retiring,  un- 
assuming, undemonstrative,  considerate,  and  helpful. 
Luciana  is  bold,  brilliant,  superficial,  pushing,  utterly 
reckless  of  the  feelings  of  others,  utilizing  all  persons 
and  things  for  the  gratification  of  her  caprices,  born 
to  command,  but  not  to  command  gracefully.  Wher- 
ever Luciana  comes,  she  turns  everything  topsy-turvy; 
yet  notwithstanding  the  arbitrariness  of  her  caprices, 


270  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

she  lias  a  certain  skill  for  winning  people  to  herself 
when  she  thinks  it  worth  while,  by  making  each 
believe  himself  the  most  favored  by  her ;  and  she  has 
many  admirers,  even  adorers.  She  has  no  success 
with  the  Young  Architect,  however.  She  is  satirical, 
wilful,  and  thoroughly  selfish,  though  with  occasional 
capriciously  benevolent  impulses ;  and  her  feelings 
toward  Ottilie  have  a  genuine  bitterness.  Luciana  is 
an  essentially  unlovely  and  distasteful  character,  even 
though  the  Lady  Superior  regards  her  as  a  little  di- 
vinity, and  one  wonders  how  the  combination  of  Char- 
lotte and  the  excellent  man  produced  such  result ;  yet 
Charlotte  with  a  parent's  hope  believes  that  the  dis- 
cipline of  life  may  make  her  amiable  and  charming. 

Nanny  interests  us  as  enabling  the  author  to  ex- 
hibit the  attractiveness  of  Ottilie  in  the  relation  of 
mistress  and  servant.  Nanny  is  a  wild,  wayward, 
lively  little  village  girl,  who  seems  to  have  no  capa- 
city for  work  at  home,  but  devotes  herself  body  and 
soul  to  Ottilie,  and  in  her  service  is  active,  cheerful, 
never-tiring.  Nanny's  devotion  does  not  always  re- 
strain her  covetonsness  and  greediness;  but  she  is 
driven  distracted  by  the  thought  that  she  had  killed 
her  mistress  by  concealing  the  fact  that,  at  Ottilie's 
command,  she  had  eaten  the  food  prepared  for  Ottilie, 
remembering  with  remorse  that  she  had  enjoyed  the 
eating.  The  touch  of  Ottilie's  lifeless  hand  worked 
a  miracle  in  Nanny's  soul,  as  well  as  on  her  brokeii 
body ;  for  we  find  her,  after,  addressing  the  Young 
Architect  in  his  sorrow  with  such  truthfulness  and 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  271 

power,  such  kiuduess  and  such  confidence,  as  to  aston- 
ish and  comfort  him. 

The  Count  and  Baroness  are  distinctively  "  society- 
people,"  and  while  recognizing  the  validity  of  mar- 
riage, and  respecting  it  in  their  own  case  as  a  social 
and  legal  requirement,  they  have  no  deep  conviction 
of  its  rationality.  Curiously  enough,  Goethe  makes 
them  instruments  to  separate  the  Captain  from  Char- 
lotte, and  Ottilie  from  Edward,  though  the  latter 
scheme  does  not  work  out  as  the  Baroness  intended. 

The  Earl  and  his  friend  have  only  an  episodical 
connection  with  the  story ;  but  here,  as  always,  the 
more  carefully  we  examine  the  episode,  the  more 
thoroughly  we  feel  its  real  artistic  connection  with 
the  main  work. 

We  will  next  examine  the  events  in  which  these 
characters  are  involved,  confining  ourselves,  how- 
ever, for  the  sake  of  brevity,  to  the  two  principal 
threads.  The  story  opens  with  a  picture  of  domestic 
contentment,  Charlotte  and  Edward,  having  been 
married  a  few  months,  have  settled  down  to  a  coun- 
try life  by  themselves,  in  a  beautiful  home,  with 
ample  wealth,  spending  their  days  industriously  in 
the  improvement  of  the  estate,  and  their  evenings  in 
pleasant  conversation,  writing,  reading,  playing  duets 
for  flute  and  piano,  and  arranging  and  completing 
Edward's  old  journal,  —  perfect  domestic  tranquillity. 
But  even  Adam  and  Eve,  who  had  had  no  experi- 
ence of  anythmg  else,  and  had  no  social  world  over 


272  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

against  them,  found  a  garden  life  irksome;  while 
these  persons  have  spent  their  youth  at  court,  have 
been  accustomed  to  gay  society,  have  many  ties  which 
connect  them  with  the  social  world,  and  are  still  in 
the  prime  of  life.  They  have  experienced  also  a 
youthful,  mutual  attachment ;  each  has  made  a  mar- 
riage of  convenience,  and  they  have  now  united  them- 
selves in  a  marriage  of  friendship.  From  what  we 
have  seen  of  the  two  characters,  we  know  that  Char- 
lotte could  spend  her  life  contentedly  under  her  pres- 
ent circumstances,  but  that  Edward  will  soon  become 
discontented,  will  desire  a  change,  and  will  be  entirely 
carried  away  by  the  first  strong  passion  wliich  change 
of  circumstances  may  give  occasion  to.  This  tranquil 
life  is  only  the  point  of  departure,  therefore  Goethe 
provides  for  its  destruction  in  the  very  first  chapter ; 
indeed,  Edward  has  the  invitation  to  the  Captain  in 
mind  as  he  lays  down  his  gardening  tools  in  the 
opening  paragraph.  Edward  proposes  inviting  their 
old  friend  the  Captain  to  visit  them.  Charlotte  op- 
poses to  his  excellent  practical  reasons  for  the  change 
her  feeling  that  the  introduction  of  a  third  person 
will  break  up  their  scheme  of  life  disastrously.  She 
feels,  what  Edward  does  not,  that  a  marriage  of  friend- 
ship is  not  secure,  and  is  sure  that  the  intervention 
of  a  third  person  is  a  matter  of  very  great  moment. 
However,  she  yields  at  last  to  Edward's  vehemence 
and  obstinacy,  concealed  by  the  warmth  and  sweetness 
with  which  he  urges  his  scheme,  and  is  even  finally 
over-persuaded  by  him  into   solving   her   difficulty 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  273 

about  Ottilie  by  sending  for  her  as  well.  Edward's 
crowning  argument  is,  that  it  would  be  selfish  in 
them  to  decline  to  help  those  who  have  the  closest 
claim  upon  their  affection,  lest  some  danger  should 
come  to  themselves.  And  so  the  foundation  is  laid 
for  the  collisions  of  the  story.  We  notice,  however, 
that  Edward  does  not  intend  any  harm ;  he  has  seen 
Ottilie,  but  has  hardly  noticed  her,  and  wonders  that 
Cliarlotte  can  think  her  particularly  attractive. 

The  limits  of  a  single  paper  will  not  permit  me  to 
stay  upon  the  details  of  the  story.  I  must  content 
myself  with  the  slightest  outline,  assuming  that  you 
are  already  familiar  with  the  details,  or  will  become 
so  if  your  interest  is  excited.  The  first  part  of  the 
work  is  devoted  to  portraying  with  consummate  art  the 
rise  and  development  of  the  passion  of  love  between 
Edward  and  Ottilie,  the  Captain  and  Charlotte.  Love 
scenes,  of  the  ordinary  English  novel  variety,  are 
scarcely  to  be  found  at  all  in  this  novel.  They  are 
managed  with  great  delicacy  for  the  most  part,  and 
the  growth  of  passion  is  indicated  mainly  by  slight 
artistic  touches,  rather  than  by  broad  delineation. 
In  each  of  the  personages  the  sentiment  takes  form 
and  is  dealt  with  as  tlie  character  of  the  individual 
determines.  Edward  begins  to  fall  in  love  with  Ot- 
tilie the  first  evening  after  her  arrival,  and  yields 
himself  wliolly  to  his  passion,  with  utter  disregard  of 
every  other  consideration ;  yet  even  he,  as  a  lover, 
finds  himself  in  his  beloved,  and  can  make  sacrifices 

for  her.     Ottilie's  love  is  as  pure  and  innocent  as  the 

18 


274  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

unfortunate  circumstances  will  permit.  She  began 
to  love  Edward  (Charlotte  contriving  to  bring  them 
together)  before  his  marriage  to  Charlotte ;  but  Ed- 
ward, with  characteristic  obstinacy  and  singleness  of 
view,  was  at  that  time  so  intent  upon  securing  Char- 
lotte that  he  did  not  notice  Ottilie.  So  it  was  his 
own  wilfulness,  not  an  external  fate,  which  placed 
the  insuperable  barrier  between  them.  Ottilie  is 
persuaded  by  Edward  that  Charlotte  desires  a  sepa- 
ration that  she  may  marry  the  Captain,  and,  accus- 
tomed to  rely  upon  the  judgment  of  others,  does  not 
reflect  farther,  but  allows  her  whole  soul  to  become 
devoted  to  her  love.  Goethe  says  that,  "  led  by  the 
sense  of  her  own  innocence  along  the  road  to  the 
happiness  for  which  she  longed,  she  only  lived  for 
Edward  ;  and,  strengthened  by  her  love  for  him  in  all 
good,  more  light  and  happy  in  her  work  for  his  sake, 
and  more  frank  and  open  toward  others,  she  found 
herself  in  a  heaven  upon  earth."  Our  author  very 
carefully  preserves  Ottilie  from  any  wilful,  deliberate 
transgression  of  the  laws  of  God  or  man. 

Charlotte  and  the  Captain  are  drawn  together  by 
similarity  of  tastes  and  occupation,  and  by  mutual 
respect  and  esteem.  Between  them  there  is  at  no 
time  violent  passion,  but  only  sincere  regard.  They 
co-operate  in  renunciation  and  separation,  and  each 
strives  heartily  to  reinstate  the  divided  family ;  but 
Edward's  headlong  impetuosity  renders  all  their  efforts 
futile.  He  insists  upon  a  separation  from  Charlotte, 
refuses  to  allow  Ottilie  to  be  sent  away,  abandons  his 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  275 

home ;  and  when  he  learns  that  Charlotte  is  about  to 
become  a  mother,  instead  of  being  recalled  to  duty 
and  family,  he  is  overcome  by  despair,  joins  the  army, 
and,  recklessly  fighting,  seeks  to  solve  by  death  the 
difficulties  of  his  situation,  or  to  find  in  his  escape  an 
assurance  that  fate  favors  his  love.     Charlotte  recov- 
ers her  spirits  and  cheerfulness,  and  does  all  she  can 
to  help  Ottilie,  providing  full  employment  for  her, 
and  advising  her  wisely  and  considerately.     Ottilie 
enters  as  best  she  may  into  the  various  activities  sug- 
gested by  Charlotte,  teaching  the  village  girls,  and 
superintending  the  house  and  gardens ;  but  does  not 
succeed  in  overcoming  her  passion.     "  She  had  first 
found  in  Edward  what  life  and  happiness  meant,  and 
in  her  present  position  she  feels  an  infinite  and  dreary 
chasm  of  which  before  she  could  have  formed  no  con- 
ception."   So,  at  the  end  of  the  first  part  of  the  story, 
all  the  tranquillity  is  destroyed,  the  family  is  divided, 
and  the  chief  personages  are  out  of  true  relation  to 
each  other  and  to  the  world.    Goethe's  universal  pan- 
acea, activity  and  diversion,  seems  inadequate  here. 
In  the  second  part  a  solution  is  sought.    We  shall  see 
how  it  is  effected. 

We  will  pass  over  the  discussion  about  burial- 
places,  which  would  alone  furnish  suggestion  for  an 
entire  essay,  as  well  as  also  the  restoration  of  the 
chapel,  the  social  whirlpool  stirred  up  by  Luciana, 
and  other  very  important  episodes,  which  have  not 
however  essential  bearing  upon  the  principal  content 
of  the  story.     The  evident  devotion  of  the   Young 


276  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

Architect,  the  prudent  desire  of  the  Assistant,  and 
the  round  of  gay  entertainments  devis6d  by  Luciana, 
make  no  change  in  Ottilie's  absorbing  passion.  The 
Assistant  iinds  her,  "  in  respect  of  a  freer  carriage,  of 
an  easier  manner  of  speaking,  of  a  higher  insight  into 
the  things  of  the  world,  altered  much  for  the  better." 
But  "  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  nothing  in  the  world  were 
disconnected,  so  long  as  she  thought  of  the  one  person 
whom  she  loved;  and  she  could  not  conceive  how, 
without  him,  anything  could  be  connected  at  all." 
She  is  docile,  and  does  her  part  everywhere,  but  with- 
out essential  change.  The  child  of  Charlotte  and 
Edward,  the  heir  to  the  estate,  is  born,  and  Ottilie, 
devoting  herself  to  it  for  Edward's  sake,  begins  to 
realize  the  ethical  requirements  of  the  family.  She 
sees  how  desirable  and  necessary  it  is  that  the  child 
should  grow  up  under  the  eyes  of  the  father  and 
mother,  "and  renew  and  strengthen  the  union  between 
them."  It  becomes  clear  to  her  that  her  love,  if  it 
would  perfect  itself,  must  become  wholly  unselfish ; 
and  there  are  moments  in  which  she  believes  that  she 
has  already  attained  this  elevation,  and  thinks  herself 
able  to  resign  Edward  and  never  see  him  again,  if  she 
can  only  know  that  he  is  happy :  "  the  one  only  deter- 
mination she  forms  for  herself  is  never  to  belong  to 
another,"  Charlotte  has  so  far  succeeded  in  her  re- 
nunciation that  she  begins  to  plan  the  marriage  of  the 
Captain  with  Ottilie.  So  it  seems  as  if  the  family 
were  to  triumph,  and  all  were  to  be  set  right  by  the 
coming  of  the  child  upon  the  scene. 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  211 

But  Edward,  who  has  survived  the  perils  of  the 
war,  reappears,  and  neither  his  own  sense  of  duty  nor 
the  arguments  of  the  Captain  (now  the  Major)  restrain 
him.  He  listens  to  what  the  Major  says  about  his 
duty  to  his  wife,  to  his  family,  to  his  own  position, 
and  to  the  world,  but  they  are  all  naught  to  his  love. 
He  is  still  determined  upon  separation  from  Charlotte. 
He  says  fate  has  brought  them  into  their  present  sit- 
uation, and  the  only  solution  is  by  a  reconstruction  of 
their  relations.  He  will  not  quite  promise  to  recon- 
sider, even  if  it  can  be  shown  that  Ottilie  can  be 
happy  without  him ;  but  no  other  consideration  will 
have  any  effect  upon  him.  The  most  the  Major  can 
secure  is  a  slight  delay,  and  he  is  finally  prevailed 
upon  to  assent  to  Edward's  plan.  Edward  goes  to 
Ottilie,  tells  her  that  the  Major  has  undertaken  to 
persuade  Charlotte,  and  begs  and  implores  her  acqui- 
escence, but  is  met  by  a  reference  to  the  child,  and 
a  firm  determination  to  abide  Charlotte's  decision, 
though  he  succeeds  in  getting  fresh  assurance  of  her 
love. 

Here  interposes  an  accident  which  destroys  all  hope 
of  solution  by  means  of  the  child.  Goethe  makes 
the  agitation  produced  in  Ottilie  by  Edward's  impet- 
uosity cause  the  child's  death.  Charlotte  sees  in  this 
the  determination  of  destiny,  and  consents  to  the  sep- 
aration. She  believes  that  the  good  of  Edward  and 
Ottilie  requires  the  sacrifice  at  her  hands.  To  the 
Major's  urging  of  his  own  suit,  she  says,  "  Do  not  ask 
me  now !     I  will  tell  you  another  time.     We  have 


278  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

not  deserved  to  be  miserable  ;  but  neither  can  we  say 
we  have  deserved  to  be  happy  together."  The  Major 
and  Edward  are  both  inclined  to  regard  the  death  of 
the  child  as  "  a  convenient  accident."  Now,  however, 
when  all  has  conspired  apparently  to  free  Ottilie  from 
restraint,  she  comes  to  full  consciousness  of  her  mis- 
take. She  says,  "  I  will  never  be  Edward's  wife.  In 
a  terrible  manner  God  has  opened  my  eyes  to  see  the 
sin  in  which  I  was  entangled.  I  will  atone  for  it,  and 
let  no  one  think  to  move  me  from  my  purpose." 

But  our  personages  are  not  to  escape  from  their 
entanglement  easily.  Though  Ottilie  by  her  repent- 
ance and  resolution  feels  herself  freed  from  the  bur- 
den of  her  fault  and  her  misfortune,  and  has  forgiven 
herself,  yet  the  self-forgiveness  is  conditioned  solely 
on  the  fullest  renunciation  persisted  in  for  all  time 
to  come;  and  her  own  weakness,  which  she  cannot 
wholly  conquer,  and  Edward's  pertinacity,  make  a 
tranquil  life  of  renunciation  impossible.  Only  the 
death  of  the  lovers  can  bring  peace,  Ottilie  deter- 
mines to  return  to  the  school,  never  willingly  to  see 
Edward  again,  and  to  devote  herself  to  God;  but 
Edward  compels  an  interview  and  destroys  her  plans, 
though  she  remains  firm  in  her  renunciation,  and  sub- 
dues him  by  the  saintly  attitude  which  the  Assistant 
noticed  as  so  characteristic  of  her  when  she  would 
not  be  further  urged.  She  returns  to  the  castle,  as 
does  Edward  also.  The  Major  too  and  Mittler  come 
frequently.  They  endeavor  to  resume  their  old  rela- 
tion outwardly,  without  bitterness  or  cross  purposes. 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  279 

but  with  the  new  relations  in  some  way  taken  up  into 
it ;  but  Ottilie  neither  speaks  nor  eats,  and  gradually 
fades  away,  till  Mittler's  rude,  though  unintentional, 
portrayal  of  her  sin  agaiust  the  bond  of  marriage 
destroys  her  life.  Edward  lived  on  mechanically ;  he 
seemed  to  have  no  tears  left,  and  to  be  incapable  of 
any  further  suffering ;  his  power  of  taking  interest  in 
what  was  going  on  diminished  every  day ;  sometimes 
he  would  follow  Ottilie's  example,  and  neither  speak 
nor  eat;  then  his  restlessness  would  overcome  him, 
and  he  would  desire  to  eat,  and  would  begin  to 
speak  again;  then  he  would  bewail  his  inability  to 
follow  in  Ottilie's  footsteps,  and  say,  "  Genius  is  re- 
quired for  everything,  even  for  martyrdom,  as  well 
as  the  rest." 

At  last  they  found  him  dead ;  Charlotte  feared  that 
he  had  committed  suicide,  but  the  circumstances  of 
his  death  prove  that  he  died  naturally.  He  died  with 
his  memorials  of  Ottilie  spread  out  before  him,  and, 
falling  asleep  "  with  his  thoughts  on  one  so  saintly, 
might  well  be  called  blessed."  Charlotte  gives  him 
his  place  by  Ottilie's  side.  The  novel  concludes : 
"  So  lie  the  lovers,  sleeping  side  by  side.  Peace  hov- 
ers above  their  resting-place.  Fair  angel  faces  gaze 
down  upon  them  from  the  vaulted  ceiling,  and  what  a 
happy  moment  that  will  be  when  one  day  they  wake 
again  together ! "  * 

This  meagre  sketch  of  the  incidents  omits  innu- 
merable artistic  touches  with  which  the  artist  charms 


280  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

the  reader,  and  the  limits  of  this  essay  forbid  my 
calling  attention  to  them.  I  have  intended  only  to 
present  what  is  necessary  for  a  consideration  of  the 
ethical  content  of  the  work ;  incidentally  observing 
also  how  the  characters  ground  the  facts.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  the  passion  of  Edward  and  Ottilia,  and  its 
collision  with  the  family,  are  the  main  tlieme  of  the 
novel.  Everything  else  is  incidental  thereto.  The 
principal  element  of  the  content  of  this  novel  is 
therefore  love,  and  more  especially  that  love  of  man 
for  woman,  and  woman  for  man,  on  which  the  family 
is  founded.  As  it  is  the  special  function  of  art  to 
excite  in  the  beholder  o,  feeling  of  the  true,  and  as  it 
accomplishes  its  purpose  by  reducing  the  true  to  a 
form  which  appeals  to  the  feeling,  it  is  evident  that 
it  will  use  spirit  in  its  internality  mainly  on  the  side 
of  sentiment.  Love  as  the  paramount  sentiment  in 
some  form  —  as  religious  love,  parental  or  filial  love, 
or  love  in  which  the  difference  of  sex  is  an  important 
factor  —  is  therefore  a  favorite  element  of  the  content 
of  works  of  Eomantic  Art.  This  is  especially  true 
of  novels,  so  that  it  has  been  said  that  no  novel  could 
possibly  be  successful  without  at  least  one  pair  of 
lovers ;  and  the  artist  usually  considers  that  number 
insufficient.  Goethe  in  the  "Elective  Affinities"  fur- 
nishes several  pairs. 

In  the  devotion  of  one  person  to  another  of  the 
opposite  sex,  the  deepest  thinkers  have  seen  a  mani- 
festation of  the  highest  phase  of  love.  The  utter  sur- 
render of  self  to  find  and  know  one's  self  for  the  first 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  281 

time  in  another  manifests  tlie  infinity  of  personality. 
Tiie  infinite  character  of  love  appears  in  that  the  true 
lover  exists  only  in  his  beloved.  It  is  evident  that 
the  collisions,  in  real  life,  of  a  sentiment  so  absorb- 
ing, with  domestic,  civil,  and  political  relations,  and 
with  itself  as  manifested  in  different  individuals,  with 
duty,  honor,  and  fidelity,  furnish  abundant  material 
for  the  imagination  of  the  artist.  Then  there  appear 
an  indefinite  variety  of  grades  of  manifestation  of  the 
sentiment,  from  the  shallowest  and  most  sensuous 
passionate  desire  to  the  highest  and  truest  devotion, 
determined  by  the  temperament  and  character  of  the 
lover.  No  two  of  the  lovers  in  the  "  Elective  Affini- 
ties" exhibit  the  passion  in  the  same  form.  There 
is  also  an  inherent  imperfection  in  the  sentiment 
itself,  in  that  the  loved  object  is  a  special  individual. 
Baron  Bunsen,  dying,  recognized  and  repudiated  this 
limitation,  when  he  said  to  his  wife,  "  We  shall  meet 
again,  for  I  have  loved  the  eternal  in  you  " ;  but  ordi- 
narily we  love  the  special  and  particular.  Hegel  has 
expressed  with  his  accustomed  vigor  and  completeness 
the  limitation  of  the  special  phase  of  love  which  is 
the  principal  element  of  the  content  of  the  work  we 
are  considering  ;  and  he  furnishes  the  key  to  the  ethi- 
cal validity  of  Goethe's  treatment  of  the  situation,  in 
the  consideration  of  love,  under  the  general  heading 
of  Chivalry  in  his  "  Aesthetik."  ^  The  obstinacy  with 
which  the  lover  insists  that  only  the  one  particular 
individual  he   has   selected   can   possibly  meet  the 

1  Hegel's  Philosopliy  of  Art,  Bryant,  p.  136  ct  seq. 


282  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

requirements  of  his  nature,  lays  the  foundation  for 
distressing  collisions.  In  this  novel  the  principal  col- 
lision is  with  the  monogamic  family  which  God  and 
man  have  instituted  as  the  fundamental  secular  insti- 
tution. The  institution  has  its  limitations.  The  true 
family  should  have  for  its  foundation  true  love,  and 
then  no  collision  of  the  kind  here  portrayed  would 
be  possible ;  but  there  are  marriages  of  convenience, 
marriages  of  vanity  and  ambition,  and  marriages  of 
friendship,  and  none  of  these  are  secure  against  love. 
Goethe  has  given  us  four  instances  of  marriages  of 
convenience ;  namely,  the  first  marriages  of  Charlotte 
and  Edward,  which  were  entered  into  at  the  solicita- 
tion of  family  and  friends ;  and  (we  may  assume)  the 
respective  marriages  of  the  Count  and  Baroness. 
The  first  two  continued  peacefully  to  their  natural 
termination,  not  through  any  inherent  validity,  how- 
ever, but  because  no  occasion  for  collision  occurred. 
The  second  two  were  not  so  fortunate,  but  Goethe  is 
careful  of  the  legal  bond.  The  Count  and  Baroness 
must  wait,  however  unwillingly,  till  the  death  of  the 
Countess  sets  the  Count  free.  Luciaua's  marriage 
with  the  Baron  is  a  marriage  of  vanity  and  ambition, 
and  we  can  readily  see  that  trouble  between  Luciana 
and  the  Baron  is  very  sure  to  arise.  The  marriage 
of  Charlotte  and  Edward  is  a  marriage  of  friendship. 
Their  early  love  was  a  mere  childish  affection,  and 
the  respect  and  esteem  which  had  succeeded  are  not 
the  ideal  foundation  of  marriage.  Hence  it  is  not 
inartistic  to  present  a  collision  between  this  marriage 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  283 

and  true  love,  as  it  would  have  been  had  true  love 
existed  between  Charlotte  and  Edward. 

In  considering  the  validity  of  the  "  Elective  Affini- 
ties "  as  a  work  of  art,  the  question  arises  primarily, 
Ought  the  artist  to  have  selected  this  particular  col- 
lision as  a  theme  ?  If  it  is  a  truth  of  human  expe- 
rience, that  is  surely  some  justification  ;  and  Goethe 
says  :  "  Indeed,  there  is  not  a  line  in  the  '  Elective 
Affinities '  that  is  not  taken  from  my  own  experience, 
and  there  is  more  in  it  than  can  be  gathered  by  any 
one  from  a  first  reading.  .  .  .  No  one  can  fail  to  rec- 
ognize in  it  a  deep,  passionate  wound,  which  shrinks 
from  being  closed  by  healing,  a  heart  which  dreads 
to  be  cured.  In  it,  as  in  a  burial  urn,  I  have  de- 
posited, with  deep  emotion,  many  a  sad  experience. 
The  3d  of  October,  1809,  set  me  free  from  the  work, 
but  the  feeling  it  embodies  can  never  quite  depart 
from  me." 

In  a  letter  to  Bettine  he  says  :  "  The  poet  was,  at 
the  development  of  this  sad  fate,  deeply  moved.  He 
has  borne  his  share  of  pains  ;  chide  him  not,  therefore, 
that  he  calls  upon  his  friends  for  sympathy.  Since 
so  much  which  is  sad  dies,  unmourned,  the  death  of 
oblivion,  the  poet  has  here  proposed  to  himself,  in  this 
one-fabled  lot,  as  in  a  funeral  urn,  to  collect  the  tears 
for  much  that  has  been  neglected."  But  not  all 
human  experiences  can  properly  be  portrayed  in  a 
novel.  I  am  inclined  to  think,  however,  that  in  these 
times,  when  the  bond  of  marriage  is  lightly  assumed 
and  lightly  broken,  and  the  passion  of  love  is  the 


284  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

sport  of  children,  a  novel  treating  this  collision  ethi- 
cally is  timely  and  desirable. 

A  second  question  is,  Does  Goethe  portray  the  col- 
lision from  a  true  ethical  standpoint  ?  The  answers 
of  different  commentators  to  this  question  have  dif- 
fered toto  ccdo.  Goethe  says,  "N"ot  many  pleasant 
remarks  were  vouchsafed  me  about  that  novel."  The 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica  says,  "  In  1809  he  finished 
the  '  Elective  Affinities,'  a  story  which  is  always  cited 
to  prove  the  immoral  tendency  of  his  works."  Bet- 
tine  vehemently  upbraids  Goethe  for  not  having  done 
precisely  what  the  accusers  of  the  novel  say  that  he 
has  done ;  namely,  for  not  having  made  love  the  con- 
qvieror.  In  this  country  it  has  been  considered  suffi- 
cient to  prove  the  immoral  tendency  of  the  "  Elective 
Affinities,"  that  a  person  prominently  connected  with 
social  movements,  accounted  disreputable,  should  have 
been  invited  to  write  the  Introduction  to  one  of  its 
editions.  It  has  been  taken  for  granted,  that,  if  it 
could  serve  any  purpose  of  such  persons,  it  must  neces- 
sarily be  bad ;  but  the  Introduction  candidly  admits 
that  the  work  will  furnish  cold  comfort  for  such  as 
find  the  restraints  of  permanent  marriage  irksome,  and 
that  to  such  its  conservatism  will  prove  an  unwelcome 
surprise.  When  one  remembers  that  the  advocates  of 
slavery,  polygamy,  and  drunkenness  have  long  been 
accustomed  to  draw  their  strongest  arguments  from 
the  Bible,  the  fact  that  persons  alleged  to  be  impure 
have  commended  the  "  Elective  Affinities  "  is  not  al- 
together conclusive  of  its  impurity.     The  work  itself 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  285 

furnishes  no  warrant  whatever  for  such  conclusion. 
Much  of  the  unintelligent,  hostile  criticism  of  the 
novel  is  really  based  on  the  assumption  that  Goetlie's 
own  life  indicated  a  loose  view  of  marriage,  and  that 
therefore  the  immoral  construction  of  his  work  is  the 
true  one.  But  Goethe  says,  and  with  direct  reference 
to  this  novel,  "  The  late  Eeinhard  of  Dresden  said  he 
often  wondered  that  I  had  such  severe  principles  with 
respect  to  marriage,  while  I  was  so  tolerant  in  every- 
thing; else."  Those  who  have  studied  the  novel  in- 
telligently  and  deeply,  —  e.  g.  Solger,  Eosenkranz, 
Diintzer,  Herman  Grimm,  and  Mrs.  C.  K.  Sherman,  — 
all  these  thorough  students  of  the  work  find  in  it  a 
profoundly  moral  content.  Lewes,  with  a  dispassion- 
ate and  unpartisan  liberality,  agrees  neither  with  those 
who  find  the  novel  moral,  nor  with  those  who  find  it 
immoral.  He  thinks  all  depends  upon  how  you  take 
it ;  and  this  is  superficially  true.  One  may  say  that 
the  final  catastrophe  results  from  the  failure  of  the 
personages  to  respect  the  validity  of  love  (Charlotte 
takes  this  view  of  the  death  of  the  child) ;  or  one  may 
say  that  the  error  of  falling  in  love  with  a  person 
already  married  can  only  be  atoned  by  death. 

The  ethical  content  of  the  work  is,  in  my  view, 
this :  the  necessary  subordination,  in  the  sphere  of 
real  life,  of  subjective  passion,  even  though  pure  and 
true,  to  the  objective  institution,  even  though  not 
ideally  perfect.  Ottilie's  love  is  innocent ;  it  had  its 
beginning  long  before  the  interference  of  other  claims ; 
it  is  as  deep  and  true  and  perfect  as  the  artist  could 


286         LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

make  it ;  and  in  itself  considered,  it  is  entitled  to 
realization  in  marriage  ;  for 

"  Love,  in  human  wise  to  bless  us, 
In  a  noble  pair  must  be  ; 
But  divinely  to  possess  us, 
It  must  form  a  precious  Three" 

But,  unfortunately  for  Ottilie,  Edward's  obstinacy  has 
erected  an  impassable  barrier  here.  If  her  love  is 
valid  against  a  marriage  of  friendship,  his  is  not.  He 
has  no  right  to  marry  and  unmarry  at  will.  The 
interests  of  society,  and  therefore  the  true  interests  of 
the  individual,  demand  permanence  for  the  family. 
The  fact  that  Charlotte  does  not  love  Edward,  and  that 
she  would  be  willing  to  have  the  marriage  dissolved, 
is  not  sufficient.  It  is  not  a  question  of  subjective 
inclination. 

It  being  settled,  then,  that  the  existing  marriage 
must  not  be  violated,  the  effect  upon  the  individuals 
concerned  will  depend  upon  their  respective  char- 
acters. The  Captain  and  Charlotte  easily  restrain 
and  renounce  their  passion.  They  are  not  made  for 
love.  Ottilie  endeavors  to  renounce,  sincerely  and 
religiously  strives  to  overcome,  and  perhaps  would 
have  succeeded  so  far  as  to  live  on  heart-broken, 
but  tranquil,  if  she  could  have  had  help,  or  even  no 
hindrance,  from  Edward  ;  for  though  her  whole  being 
has  gone  into  her  love,  she  has  strength  of  character 
and  patience  enough  to  wait, —  for  after  all  it  is  but 
waiting.  Goethe  says,  "  "What  a  happy  moment  that 
will  be  when  one  day  they  wake  again  together ! " 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  287 

Death  cancelled  the  marriage  bond.  It  is  in  the 
sphere  of  real  life,  here  in  this  world,  that  their  love 
must  be  subordinated.  External  marriage,  without 
true  spiritual  union,  is  only  "  till  death  do  us  part,"  — 
so  that  Ottilie  could  look  to  the  future  with  happy 
expectation.  But  how  could  she  ever  be  happy  with 
Edward  ?  He  is  so  obstinate,  yet  so  weak,  —  so  self- 
ish, yet  without  self-control;  but  love  is  self-denying, 
not  self-seeking,  and  perhaps  Ottilie  can  make  a  true 
lover  even  of  Edward, 

Eosenkranz  thinks  that  the  Fate  element  in  this 
novel  is  of  principal  importance.  He  says,  "  The 
'  Elective  Affinities '  represent  to  us  a  tragic  fate." 
This  statement  is  misleading,  if  understood  to  mean 
that  the  triumph  of  Fate  over  man  is  the  main 
content  of  the  work.  Such  interpretation  would  be 
correct,  if  this  narrow  span  were  all ;  but  to  one  who 
measures  justly  the  capacity  and  endurance  of  the 
human  spirit.  Fate  is  a  subordinate  factor.  It  is 
evident  from  expressions  in  "Meister,"  that  Goethe 
views  the  complications  of  Fate  merely  as  obstacles 
which  the  true  spirit  must  overcome.  The  Stranger 
says  to  Wilhelra  :  "  The  fabric  of  our  life  is  formed 
of  necessity  and  chance.  The  reason  of  man  takes 
its  station  between  them,  and  may  rule  them  both  ; 
it  treats  the  necessary  as  the  groundwork  of  its 
being ;  the  accidental  it  can  direct,  and  guide,  and 
employ  for  its  own  purposes;  and  only  while  this 
principle  of  reason  stands  firm  and  inexpugnable 
does  man  deserve  to  be  named  the  god  of  this  lower 


288  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

world.  But  woe  to  hiin  who,  from  his  youth,  has 
used  himself  to  search  in  necessity  for  something  of 
arbitrary  will,  —  to  ascribe  to  chance  a  sort  of  reason, 
which  it  is  a  matter  of  religion  to  obey  !  Is  conduct 
like  this  aught  else  than  to  renounce  one's  under- 
standing, and  give  unrestricted  scope  to  one's  inclina- 
tions ? "  It  seems  as  if  Goethe  might  have  had  this 
passage  in  mind  when  he  created  tlie  character  of 
Edward,  and  the  circumstances  with  which  he  has 
surrounded  him.  Whether  we  consider  the  outer 
fate  of  external  events,  or  the  inner  fate  of  tempera- 
ment and  natural  disposition,  both  of  which  aspects 
of  fate  have  full  play  in  this  novel,  yet  it  is  equally 
true  of  both  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  human 
spirit  to  overcome  fate,  and  free  itself  from  all  deter- 
mination save  the  highest  self-determination. 

The  supposition  that  the  influence  of  external  fate 
is  the  principal  content  of  the  "  Elective  Affinities  " 
contradicts  Goethe's  conception  of  the  true  method  of 
a  novel ;  he  makes  Serlo  and  Wilhelm  agree,  "  that 
in  the  novel  some  degree  of  scope  may  be  allowed  to 
Chance,  but  that  it  must  always  be  led  and  guided 
by  the  sentiments  of  the  personages;  on  the  other 
hand,  that  Fate,  which  by  means  of  outward,  uncon- 
nected circumstances  carries  forward  men,  without 
their  own  concurrence,  to  an  unforeseen  catastrophe, 
can  have  place  only  in  the  drama ;  that  Chance  may 
produce  pathetic  situations,  but  never  tragic  ones." 

The  "  Elective  Affinities "  teaches  many  valuable 
lessons  as  to  the  conduct  of  life.     I  select  these :  it 


THE  ELECTIVE  AFFINITIES.  289 

teaches,  that  the  elective  affinity  of  love  cannot  he 
ignored,  if  one  would  many  happily ;  that  one  must 
cure  his  spiritual  diseases  by  the  activity  of  his  own 
soul,  neither  accusing  Tate  of  his  misfortunes,  nor 
seeking  relief  in  the  mediation  of  accident :  hut  it 
teaches  most  explicitly  of  all,  that  man,  as  a  rational 
being,  may  hot  yield,  as  a  chemical  element  may,  to 
a  natural  affinity,  but  must  regard  his  duties  and 
preserve  inviolate  the  institutions  of  society,  —  dis- 
regarding them  only  at  peril  of  his  life. 


19 


290  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 


X. 

CHILD   LIFE   AS   PORTRAYED   BY 
GOETHE. 

By  Mes.   CAROLINE  K.   SHERMAN. 

Every  great  poem  is  of  necessity  an  organic  unity. 
Its  parts,  even  to  minute  details,  are  dependent  each 
on  the  other  and  subservient  to  the  whole,  as  the 
whole  in  its  turn  is  likewise  subservient  to  each  of 
its  parts.  The  poet  may  claim  to  sing  as  the  birds 
sing,  admitting  no  other  motive  than  the  relief  of  his 
love-laden  heart ;  he  may  be  conscious  of  no  earnest 
moral  purpose,  no  avowed  intention  of  putting  in 
rhyme  things  never  yet  attempted  in  prose  or  verse. 
Yet,  if  he  be  a  genuine  poet,  his  song  freely  expresses 
the  dominant  impulse,  which  gives  the  key-note,  and 
all  the  variations  but  echo  and  re-echo  the  main  idea. 
Goethe  more  thau  any  other  poet  has  disclaimed  the 
charge  of  ultimate  ends  and  final  purposes  in  his 
writings,  and  still  students  of  Goethe  pore  over  his 
works,  bent  on  finding  the  central  unifying  idea,  its 
manifold  form  of  expression,  its  artistic  development, 
as  also  its  deep  moral  significance.  And  with  right 
they  do  this ;  for  the  poet,  whether  working  con- 
sciously or  otherwise,  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  poet,  works 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY  GOETHE.    291 

not  from  any  whim  or  caprice,  but  according  to  the 
divine  harmony  within  him,  bringing  the  chaotic  dis- 
order of  the  world  of  fact  into  forms  of  relation  and 
beauty,  reducing  the  distracted  many  to  the  Complete 
One,  and  finding  in  that  One  the  harmonious  All, 
an  organic  whole. 

Still,  although  recognizing,  as  we  do,  the  vital 
unity  of  each  of  Goethe's  masterpieces,  the  interde- 
pendence of  all  the  parts,  and  their  necessary  relation 
to  the  whole,  it  is  nevertheless  altogether  possible 
that  many  an  episode  may  be  thrown  in,  having  no 
direct  bearing  on  the  whole ;  that  beauty  here,  as 
elsewhere,  may  be  "  its  own  excuse  for  being " ;  and 
that  one  might  as  well  ask  why  the  blush  was  on  the 
rose,  or  the  tint  on  the  peach,  as  to  question  the 
significance  of  the  various  phases  of  childhood  por- 
trayed in  Goetlie's  works.  Yet  as  a  Darwin  finds 
utility  even  in  the  most  delicate  beauty,  —  finds  that 
it  renders  an  all-important  service  in  the  development 
of  Better  up  to  Best,  so  we  see  that  Goethe  quite  as 
often  passes  from  the  beautiful  by  way  of  the  true 
to  the  useful,  as  from  the  useful  by  way  of  the  true 
to  the  beautiful,  and  that  the  Child  Life  which  he  de- 
lights to  picture  is  no  idle  accessory,  but  has  always 
a  distinct  bearing  on  the  whole. 

It  was  but  natural  that  the  morning-red  of  Goe- 
the's own  happy  childhood  should  lend  some  color 
to  these  portraits.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  Goethe  looked 
in  his  own  heart  and  wrote.  His  childhood  was,  in 
many  respects,  an  ideal  one,  —  not  extraordinary  in 


292  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

any  abnormal  sense :  on  the  contrary,  it  was  normal, 
as  following  the  highest  type,  and  reaching  the  flower 
and  perfection  of  childhood. 

Beautiful  in  person,  endowed  with  healthful  physi- 
cal senses,  the  world  of  illusion  was  to  him  a  veritable 
paradise  of  delights.  He  had  a  comprehensive  mind, 
that  grasped  the  things  of  sense,  and  easily  discovered 
their  order  and  relation.  Prompted  by  that  childish 
curiosity  which  later  leads  to  rich  scientific  investi- 
gation, study  was  to  the  child  Goethe  but  the  open- 
ing of  realm  beyond  realm  of  new  discovery.  On 
the  moral  side  there  was  neither  the  hypersensitive 
conscience  that  belongs  to  the  child  of  weak  nerves, 
and  whose  fate  is  to  die  young,  nor  yet  was  there 
a  rude  indifference  to  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
others.  A  strongly  affectionate  nature  and  heart- 
felt sympathy  for  all  about  him,  no  doubt,  had  a  con- 
trolling influence  in  a  moral  direction;  while,  on  the 
religious  side,  as  a  boy  Goethe  was  full  of  awe  and 
reverence  for  that  Unseen  Power,  which  he  recog- 
nized, not  only  as  the  beneficent  Creator  and  wise 
Preserver,  but  also  as  the  awful  Tliunderer,  the  grim 
Destroyer,  laying  waste  the  earth  by  fire  and  flood. 
This  Unseen  Power,  even  at  that  early  age,  con- 
founded the  boy's  faith.  He  found  it  hard  to  recon- 
cile divine  goodness  with  painful  facts ;  but  here,  as 
later  in  the  problem  of  Paust,  a  healthful  optimism 
prevailed,  and  the  boy  trusted,  as  the  heart  of  child- 
hood will  trust,  that  "  somehow  good  will  be  the  final 
goal  of  ill " ;  and  then,  with  that  "  familiar  grasp  of 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY  GOETHE.    293 

things  divine"  so  becoming  in  the  reverent  child,  he 
built  an  altar  to  his  unknown  God,  hoping,  since  the 
great  God  did  not  deign  to  manifest  himself  in  the 
flesh,  tliat  he  might  at  least  approach  him  with 
sacrificial  offerings  of  beauty,  and  worship  him  by 
means  of  symbols.  Here,  too,  we  see  that  the  sensu- 
ous child-poet  was  father  of  the  man.  From  first  to 
last,  Goethe  could  approach  the  Infinite  with  no  cold, 
formal  abstractions.  In  beautiful,  sensuous  forms  he 
must  meet  his  divinity,  make  his  confession,  and 
breathe  his  aspirations.  From  the  heautiful  to  the 
good,  from  the  good  to  the  beautiful,  was  Goethe's 
impulse,  or,  as  Plato  has  it,  "  from  fair  forms  to  those 
still  fairer,  and  so  on  up  to  the  highest  Good."  This 
tendency  in  the  child  Goethe  from  the  beautiful  to 
the  good  was  nothing  individual,  peculiar  to  himself. 
It  is  the  natural  tendency  of  every  healthful  child, 
and  when  parents  and  teachers  will  understand  it 
there  will  be  less  need  of  arbitrary  rules  and  dog- 
matic precepts. 

Goethe's  surroundings  as  a  child  were  favorable 
for  a  normal  development.  The  inflexibility  of  the 
overwise  father,  sternly  in  earnest  for  the  good  of  his 
children,  was  modified  by  the  joyous  sunny  temper- 
ament of  the  mother.  The  father  appealed  to  the 
head,  the  mother  to  the  heart.  If  the  father  was 
sometimes  over-persistent  and  inexorable  in  his  de- 
mands, the  little  mother,  as  Goethe  was  pleased  to 
call  her,  could  charm  away  any  ill  effect  by  her  glad 
presence.    Not  that  the  father  was  a  hard  taskmaster. 


294  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

but  he  had  his  own  views  of  education,  which  to  him 
were  ideal,  and  in  many  respects  were  so ;  only  it  is 
so  hard  sometimes  to  draw  the  dividing  line  between 
what  is  ideal  and  what  is  mere  hobby.  Goethe's 
father  occasionally  overstepped  this  boundary,  which 
is  pardonable,  perhaps,  when  we  remember  how  excel- 
lent his  plans  were  in  the  main,  and  what  a  strong 
influence  for  good  they  exerted  on  the  boy,  —  when 
we  remember,  too,  that  the  ideal  system  of  education, 
which  Goethe  unfolds  in  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  existed 
in  crude  form  in  the  brain  of  the  elder  Goethe. 

How  happily  Goethe  remembered  his  childhood, — 
his  free  play  in  the  world  of  sense,  his  first  hints  of 
self-consciousness,  the  gradual  unfolding  of  ethical 
and  spiritual  powers,  —  he  has  narrated  in  the  auto- 
biographical sketches,  which  he  calls  Truth  and  Poetry, 
and  which  by  no  means  signify  Truth  and  Fiction, 
but  Truth  and  that  kind  of  Poetry  which,  as  Aristotle 
says,  comes  nearer  to  vital  truth  than  history.  What 
is  given  in  detail  in  these  sketches  is  again  found  in 
lines  of  exquisite  poetry  in  the  Prelude  to  "  Faust," 
which  find  an  echo  in  every  heart  that  yet  remembers 
its  own  glad  spring-time  :  — 

"  Then  give  me  back  the  years  again 
When  mine  own  spirit  too  was  growing, 
"When  my  whole  being  was  a  vein 
Of  native  songs  within  me  flowing  ; 
Then  slept  the  world  in  misty  blue, 
Each  bud  the  nascent  wonder  cherished, 
And  all  for  me  the  flowerets  grew 
That  on  each  meadow  richly  flourished: 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY   GOETHE.     295 

Though  I  naught  had,  I  had  a  treasure, 
The  thirst  for  truth  and  in  illusion  pleasure. 
Give  me  the  free,  unshackled  pinion, 
The  height  of  joy,  the  depth  of  pain. 
Strong  hate,  and  stronger  love's  dominion, 
0,  give  me  back  my  youth  again!  " 

The  portraits  of  child  life  in  Goethe's  works  that 
are  most  familiar  are  those  of  Felix  and  of  Mignon  in 
"Wilhelm  Meister."  This  social  romance,  as  we  all 
know,  represents  the  development  of  the  individual 
as  he  passes  through  the  various  phases  of  social  life, 
seeking  not  so  much  to  contradict  and  subvert  these 
social  forms,  as  was  the  case  with  the  aggressive  Faust, 
but  wisely  to  appropriate  from  them  that  which  shall 
tend  to  his  own  advancement.  Not  revolution,  but 
evolution,  is  Wilhelm  Meister's  motto.  He  finds  no 
fault  with  the  established  order  of  things, — is  no  rad- 
ical reformer,  who  sees  the  world  out  of  joint,  and 
considers  it  his  duty  to  set  it  right.  He  accepts  his 
environment  as  it  is,  with  the  purpose  of  wringing  from 
it  that  which  is  peculiarly  his  own,  or  that  which  will 
bring  him  into  most  harmonious  relations  with  his 
conditions.  We  know  through  what  various  degrees 
of  culture  Wilheim  Meister  passed ;  —  the  beneficial 
influence  which  commercial  pursuits  had  upon  him, 
leading  him  to  recognize  the  value  of  material  gain 
only  so  far  as  it  was  subservient  to  spiritual  needs, 
and  the  influence  of  the  dramatic  profession,  by  which 
he  was  led  from  that  which  seems  to  that  which  is. 
Art  showed  him  his  own  possibilities  and  at  the  same 


296  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

time  his  limitations.  Through  religion  he  recognized 
his  position  and  relation  to  the  universe.  We  know 
■what  an  important  part  woman  plays  in  the  history 
of  this  development.  At  every  stage  of  the  process 
her  power  is  manifest.  She  may  attract,  she  may 
repel ;  but  either  force,  attraction  or  repulsion,  has  its 
weight  and  affects  his  course. 

It  was  specially  fitting  that  in  this  novel,  which 
deals  with  the  development  of  the  individual  as  such, 
woman  should  have  had  so  active  a  part;  for  thus 
far  in  the  world's  history  her  influence  has  been 
chiefly  with  man  as  an  individual.  How  great  that 
power  has  been,  Goethe  is  free  to  admit.  If  he  has 
delineated  women  as  they  are,  with  their  weak  little- 
nesses and  frivolities,  he  has  also  shown  the  divine 
power  of  woman  and  the  moral  order  which  reigns 
where  woman  reigns.  "  But,"  says  Goethe,  "  what  in 
us  women  leave  uncultivated,  children  cultivate  when 
we  retain  them  near  us."  Wilhelm  passes  through 
all  the  stages  of  apprenticeship ;  yet  not  until  he  rec- 
ognizes and  assumes  the  duties  of  a  parent  does  his 
apprenticeship  end.  Now  he  is  no  longer  an  isolated 
individual,  a  mere  learner,  a  passive  recipient.  He 
is  bound  by  family  ties,  and  is  now  conscious  of  his 
duties  and  privileges  as  a  citizen.  It  is  the  child 
Felix,  well  named  the  Happy-One,  who  gives  the 
finishing  stroke  to  his  apprenticeship.  "Notwith- 
standing his  experience  of  life,  it  seemed  as  if  his  ob- 
servation of  this  child  was  giving  him  his  first  clear 
insight  into  human  nature.     Both  the  theatre  and  the 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED   BY  GOETHE.     297 

world  appeared  to  him  as  a  multitude  of  thrown  dice, 
upon  whose  upper  surface  a  higher  or  a  lower  numher 
was  marked,  and  which  when  added  together  make  up 
a  certain  sum.  But  here  in  this  child  one  single  die 
was  placed  before  him,  upon  whose  several  sides  the 
value  and  worthlessness  of  human  nature  were  plainly 
indicated." 

Felix,  as  we  know,  was  the  son  of  Wilhelm  and 
Mariana.  He  is  first  introduced  as  a  child  of  three 
years,  bright  as  the  sun.  "  His  clear  eyes  and  open 
countenance  were  shaded  by  the  most  beautiful  golden 
locks,  and  his  dark,  delicate,  and  softly  bending  eye- 
brows adorned  a  forehead  of  glittering  whiteness,  while 
the  ruddy  hues  of  healtli  glowed  upon  his  cheeks." 
Goethe's  ideal  of  healthy,  happy  childhood.  At  first 
the  reader  supposes  him  to  be  the  child  of  the  sickly 
sentimental  Aurelia  ;  but  when  he  called  her  mother 
without  any  tenderness  of  tone,  we  at  once  suspect  that 
this  healthful  child  of  nature  is  not  the  offspring  of 
the  super-emotional  woman.  Goethe  understood  the 
laws  of  heredity  too  well  for  that.  Felix  bears  a  close 
resemblance  to  his  father,  in  that  he  is  docile  and 
tractable,  passive  in  a  receptive  sense,  yet,  like  his 
father,  active  and  ready  to  appropriate  and  assimilate 
that  which  is  peculiarly  his  own.  Felix  is  no  saint. 
He  has  the  faults  of  a  child.  He  persists  in  drink- 
ing from  the  decanter,  instead  of  using  the  glass,  and 
preferred  eating  from  the  dish  rather  than  from  a  plate. 
He  slams  the  doors,  or  leaves  them  open.  In  other 
words,  he  is  the  winsome,  attractive,  natural  child  of 


298  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

the  Kindergarten,  rather  than  the  morbidly  good  child 
of  the  Sunday-school  book.  His  heart  is  tender  and 
affectionate,  but  human  rather  than  humane.  When 
the  cook  cut  up  some  pigeons,  he  struck  at  her ;  but 
the  favorable  impression  which  this  produced  on  his 
father  was  soon  destroyed,  when  he  saw  him  merci- 
lessly killing  frogs  and  tearing  butterflies'  wings  to 
pieces,  —  like  the  child  of  our  acquaintance,  who 
thought  it  cruelly  wicked  to  kill  robins,  but  all  right 
to  kill  sparrows.  Felix  was  also  highly  delighted 
when  he  could  sit  down  in  a  corner  with  a  book; 
saying  with  a  serious  face, "  I  must  study  this  learned 
stuff,"  though  he  was  ignorant  of  his  letters,  and 
refused  to  learn  them. 

Wisely  directed,  he  will  become  the  well-balanced 
man.  The  father  sees  this,  and  now  the  chief  anxiety 
of  the  man^  who  had  hitherto  lived  only  for  self-de- 
velopment, is  the  education  of  his  boy,  —  his  other 
Ego ;  and  yet  almost  the  first  observation  which  the 
father  makes,  an  observation  common  to  all  parents, 
is  that  the  child  is  educating  him  rather  than  he  edu- 
cating the  child.  For  the  child's  sake  he  values  prop- 
erty, studies  social  politics  and  the  various  forms  of 
public  life.  So  completely  now  is  his  life  controlled 
by  the  interests  of  the  child,  and  pedagogics  form  so 
important  a  part  of  the  Journeymanship,  that  it  would 
seem  almost  as  if  the  child's  development,  and  not  that 
of  the  father,  were  the  central  idea,  —  calling  to  mind 
the  old  insolvable  problem,  "  Does  the  tree  exist  for 
the  blossom,  or  the  blossom  for  the  tree  ? " 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY  GOETHE.     299 

The  harmonious  culture  of  all  the  faculties  is  the 
father's  aim  for  the  child.  To  this  end  he  follows  as 
well  as  bends  the  natural  inclination.  Before  giving 
instruction  he  waits  for  the  child  to  ask,  "  What  is 
it  ?  "  or,  as  Jean  Paul  says,  is  cautious  not  to  give  the 
draught  before  the  child  has  the  thirst. 

With  an  enthusiasm  worthy  of  Frederick  Frobel 
he  enters  into  the  child's  interests  and  sympathies, 
valuing  symbolic  culture  and  industrial  training.  So 
far  as  is  possible,  he  places  him  in  the  midst  of 
glad  surroundings,  well  knowing  that  a  happy  envi- 
ronment is  to  a  child  what  sunshine  is  to  a  plant 
Those  good  people  whom  he  would  have  the  child 
imitate  must  also  be  glad  and  happy,  since  children 
usually  copy  those  individuals  who  seem  to  live 
most  happily.  He  will  have  the  child  educated  to 
live  in  the  Noiv,  and  find  its  happiness  in  the  way  of 
culture  rather  than  at  some  distant  end.  The  happi- 
ness, however,  which  Goethe  seeks  for  children,  is  not 
simply  glad,  sensuous  animal  existence.  The  child 
has  within  him  the  possibilities  of  rational  and  spir- 
itual being.  He  can  attain  complete  development, 
actual  happiness,  only  in  the  realization  of  these. 
Happiness  for  cliild  or  man  is  found  only  in  moral 
freedom.  Selfishness  is  the  fate  and  fetter  of  the 
child,  as  well  as  of  the  adult.  Each  in  his  owm  way 
must  work  out  the  difficult  problem  from  fate  to  free- 
dom. At  every  step,  the  child,  as  well  as  the  father, 
is  called  upon  to  renounce.  Never  for  the  sake  of 
renunciation,  however.  It  must  be  the  denial  of  self 
only  for  the  higher  profession  of  self. 


300  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF  GOETHE. 

In  the  harmonious  culture  of  all  the  varied  powers 
of  the  child,  Goethe  emphasizes  with  special  stress 
that  which  no  one  brings  into  the  world,  and  yet 
that  upon  which  depends  everything  through  which  a 
man  becomes  a  man  on  every  side,  — Veneration.  The 
child  must  reverence  that  which  is  ahove  him,  which 
is  reflected  and  revealed  at  first  in  his  parents,  teach- 
ers, and  superiors.  He  must  reverence  what  is  heneath 
him,  —  that  which  humbly  ministers  to  his  happiness 
and  well-being,  as  also  that  which  hurts  or  harms  him ; 
for  even  this  he  must  recognize  as  a  force,  which  it 
well  behooves  him  to  treat  with  respect,  and  to  which 
he  must  on  many  an  occasion  make  terms  of  peace, 
and  perhaps  sacrificial  offerings.  He  must  also  re- 
spect himself,  not  with  vain  pride  and  isolated  ego- 
tism, but  remembering  that  he  too  is  one  of  many,  — 
he,  too,  is  a  central  point  from  which  good  can  and 
ought  to  emanate. 

These  three  forms  of  reverence  are  one,  and  the  one 
is  three.  There  cannot  be  reverence  for  what  is  above 
us  without  lifting  ourselves  toward  it  and  so  increas- 
ing our  self-respect ;  and  the  humblest  is  so  allied  to 
the  highest  that  in  respecting  the  lowest  one  does  rev- 
erence to  the  highest.  Goethe  had  need  to  lay  em- 
phasis on  this  one  point  of  veneration,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  true  culture.  Without  reverence  for 
what  is  above  him,  the  child  may  have  self-assertion, 
but  never  self-respect.  Without  due  regard  for  that 
which  is  beneath  him,  he  "will  be  at  the  tender  mer- 
cies of  Fate,  and  never  arrive  at  the  only  true  man- 
hood, which  is  self-possession,  ethical  freedom. 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY  GOETHE.     301 

Wilhelm  Meister  finds  for  Felix  a  school  in  which 
reverence  holds  as  important  a  place  as  mathemat- 
ics, —  a  school  in  which  all  formal  outward  signs  of 
courtesy  and  respect  rest  on  deep  moral  and  religious 
foundations.  Men  are  wont  to  call  this  ideal  school  of 
Goethe  Utopian  and  visionary,  but  the  dream  of  one 
age  becomes  the  possibility  of  the  next.  Our  chil- 
dren's children  may  attend  common  schools  where 
ethics,  and  even  religion  emancipated  from  dogmatism, 
will  find  place  in  the  curriculum. 

While  Felix  is  the  glad,  happy  child,  everywhere  at 
home  where  there  is  earth,  air,  and  sunshine,  Mignon 
seems  no  child  of  earth,  but  a  waif  from  that  Paradiso 
which  is  all  love,  light,  and  harmony,  Felix  has 
native  strength.  He  can  make  his  way  from  fate  to 
freedom,  wrestling,  conquering,  or  renouncing.  This 
world  is  his  element,  and  as  child  or  man  he  will 
wring  from  it  that  which  is  best  for  him.  But  Mig- 
non is  nowhere  at  home.  A  yearning,  an  irresistible 
longing,  fills  her  heart.  Her  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world.  Hunt  for  it  as  much  as  she  may,  the  home  she 
seeks  is  laid  down  on  no  map.  Goethe  portrays  her 
as  a  child  of  sunny  Italy,  the  offspring  of  a  most  un- 
fortunate union,  which  a  pitiless  Fate  cruelly  brought 
about  in  the  tenderest  guise.  Her  father  was  a  reli- 
gious enthusiast,  given  over  to  emotions  half  spiritual, 
half  physical,  which  for  a  time  exalted  him  to  the 
seventh  heaven  and  then  cast  him  into  an  abyss  of 
dejection  and  misery.  Eescued  from  this  unnatural 
condition  by  the  power  of  love,  he  learns  when  it  is 


302  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

too  late  that  the  object  of  his  love  is  his  own  sister. 
With  all  the  reckless  frenzy  incident  to  such  a  nature, 
he  will  hear  nothing  of  renunciation.  He  looks  upon 
social  law  as  a  violence  to  nature.  In  the  madness  of 
despair  he  demands  that  the  heart  should  follow  the 
impulse  of  unconscious  nature  rather  than  the  cold 
formal  rules  of  reason.  He  refuses  to  see  that  he  is 
not  living  in  the  free  world  of  his  own  thoughts,  but 
in  a  state  where  laws  and  regulations  are  as  unchanged 
as  the  principles  of  nature,  because  they  are  based 
upon  nature. 

So  we  see  that,  while  the  religious  element  is  the 
leading  trait  in  his  character,  it  is  the  form  of  religion 
for  which  he  cares,  and  not  its  moral  content.  He 
will  have  the  emotional  part  of  religion,  its  ecstasies, 
its  soul  intoxications  and  sweet  deliriums,  but  not  its 
self-abnegations,  and  triumphs  that  come  only  of  pain- 
ful conquests.  Fate  overtakes  him,  since  he  follows 
inclination  rather  than  duty.  He  becomes  a  wretched 
wanderer,  finding  consolation  for  the  gloomy  vagaries 
of  his  brain  only  in  his  harp.  The  mother  too  was  of 
a  religious  disposition.  She  never  knew  the  character 
of  her  offence.  By  a  pious  fraud  she  was  led  to  be- 
lieve that  she  had  sinned  against  her  spiritual  nature 
in  engaging  herself  to  a  priest.  Her  misery  and  re- 
pentance over  this  unwilling  sin  is  greater  even  than 
her  love  for  her  child.  Eeligious  madness  and  enthu- 
siasm happily  cheer  her  soul,  and  death  brings  a 
speedy  release. 

These  were  the  parents  of  Mignon.     Deprived  of 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY  GOETHE.     303 

their  care,  she  lived  with  a  worthy  family  near  the  sea. 
"Soon  she  evinced  the  greatest  fancy  for  climbing, 
and  to  imitate  the  difficult  feats  of  the  rope-dancer 
seemed  to  be  a  mere  impulse  of  her  nature.  To  do 
this  more  easily,  she  changed  clothes  with  the  boys 
who  were  ber  companions,  and,  although  such  conduct 
was  considered  unbecoming,  it  was  permitted.  Her 
love  of  wandering  often  led  her  far  from  home,  and, 
though  she  often  went  astray  and  for  long  periods,  she 
never  failed  eventually  to  return.  She  would  then 
take  her  seat  beneath  the  pillars  of  a  portico  before  a 
large  country  mansion  in  the  neighborhood,  where  she 
was  allowed  to  remain  as  long  as  she  pleased.  She 
would  rest  upon  the  steps,  or  at  times,  running  through 
the  spacious  hall,  would  linger  among  the  statues." 
One  day  she  continued  absent.  She  was  stolen  by  a 
band  of  strolling  players,  who  knew  her  value  as  a 
rope-dancer.  Eescued  by  Wilheim  Meister  from  their 
brutal  treatment,  he  became  her  protector.  Her  sin- 
gular nature  as  well  as  her  origin  is  a  mystery.  She 
frequently  remained  quite  silent  for  an  entire  day. 
Sometimes,  however,  she  answered  more  readily,  but 
in  so  strange  a  way  that  it  left  doubtful  whether  her 
peculiarity  arose  from  shrewdness  or  ignorance  of 
the  language,  as  she  generally  expressed  herself  in 
broken  German  mingled  with  French  and  Italian,  and 
yet  in  no  language  could  she  express  herself  with 
facility ;  and  the  difficulty  seemed  to  arise  from  her 
mode  of  thought  rather  than  from  any  defect  of  speech. 
Notwithstanding  her  great  wish  to  learn,  her  progress 


304  LIFE   AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

was  slow  and  laborious.  It  was  the  same  with  her 
writing,  —  a  task  at  which  she  toiled.  It  was  only 
when  she  sang  and  touched  the  guitar  that  she  ap- 
peared to  have  an  organ  which  opened  and  displayed 
the  emotion  of  her  soul. 

It  may  be  noted,  in  passing,  that  Goethe  takes  a 
generous  pity  on  those  quiet  reticent  natures  who 
have  little  gift  of  language.  He  is  sure  to  find  for 
them  some  form  of  expression  that  will  be  a  relief  to 
the  overburdened  heart,  and  by  means  of  which  we 
may  know  the  rich  fulness  of  their  nature.  Ottilie,  in 
the  "  Elective  Affinities,"  is  better  understood  through 
her  diary,  and  Mignon,  who  lacks  even  the  ordinary 
gift  of  language,  finds  free  expression  only  in  music. 
Goethe  recognized  the  value  of  his  own  ready  power 
of  expression,  and  the  words  which  he  puts  in  the 
mouth  of  Tasso  were  no  doubt  his  own  sentiment : 

"  Though  in  their  mortal  anguish  men  are  dumb, 
To  me  a  God  hath  given  to  tell  my  grief." 

"  The  force  of  Mignon's  ripening  nature  often  ren- 
dered Wilhelm  anxious  and  fearful.  The  warmth  of 
her  disposition  toward  him  seemed  to  increase  daily, 
and  her  whole  being  seemed  agitated  with  a  silent 
restlessness."  That  love  which  can  brook  no  rival 
becomes  with  her  an  all-absorbing,  though  only  half- 
conscious  passion.  This  ungratified  love  preys  on 
her  frail  body,  and  finally  destroys  it ;  but  not  until 
Mignon  has  learned  the  one  lesson  which  this  s;reat- 
est  of  novels  teaches,  —  self-renunciation,  which  is 
no  stoical  abnegation,  but  the   surrendering  of  the 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY  GOETHE.    305 

demonic,  as  Emerson  calls  it,  for  a  celestial  love.  She 
becomes 

"Faithful,  but  not  fond, 
Bound  for  the  just,  but  not  beyond." 

Like  Ottilie,  she  finds  sweet  consolation  in  useful 
activity  and  willing  service.  An  unerring  instinct 
leads  her  to  comfort  the  old  harper,  whom  she  little 
dreams  to  be  her  own  father.  She  teaches  Felix  to 
read,  and  whenever  her  heart  feels  any  want  she  re- 
solves that  Felix  shall  fill  the  void.  More  and  more 
she  seems  to  lose  her  hold  upon  earth.  Dressed  in  long 
wliite  attire,  and  sitting  with  Felix  in  her  lap,  she 
resembled  a  departed  spirit,  while  the  boy  was  life 
itself.  It  seemed  as  if  heaven  and  earth  were  in  one 
embrace.  The  death  which  soon  follows  is  hardly 
death,  but  rather  a  glad  transition,  as  if  the  yearning 
spirit  had  now  found  its  native  home. 

Goethe  has  thrown  an  indescribable  charm  about 
this  mysterious  child,  whose  deep  and  impenetrable 
nature  scarcely  allows  us  to  conjecture  its  emotions. 
Nothing  therein  is  plain  and  evident  save  her  grate- 
ful love  to  her  benefactor,  and  the  vague  weird  notes 
of  her  music,  which  hint  far  more  than  they  express. 
"  Know'st  thou  the  land  ? "  is  the  continuous  refrain 
which  she  echoes  and  re-echoes.  Her  home-sick  soul 
longs  for  its  far-off  home,  and  utters  that  cry  which  is 
the  cry  of  every  human  soul  far  off  from  God,  who 
is  our  home. 

As  in  the  old  Greek  tragedies  the  chorus  always 
gives  the  word  of  explanation,  so  in  the  chorus  M'hich 

20 


306  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

celebrates  the  obsequies  of  Mignon  we  have  the  sig- 
nificance of  this  mysterious  child,  whose  being  was 
love  and  harmony,  but  who  could  find  no  rest  or  sat- 
isfaction in  the  discordant  world  of  sense.  "Look 
forward  with  the  eyes  of  the  spirit,"  says  the  chorus. 
"  Let  imagination  awake,  which  bears  Life,  the  fairest 
and  highest,  to  a  habitation  beyond  the  stars."  And 
again,  "  Children,  hasten  into  life  !  In  the  pure  robe 
of  beauty,  may  Love  meet  you  with  heavenly  counte- 
nance and  the  garland  of  immortality."  Wilhelm 
Meister  is  brought  to  realize  that  he  is  not  only  a 
social  and  moral  being,  and  capable  of  development 
as  such,  but  that  he  is  also  a  religious  being.  In  his 
own  soul  a  voice  echoes  again  and  again,  "  Know'st 
thou  the  land  ? "  He  may  not  be  able  to  answer  the 
question,  satisfactorily.  He  certainly  knows  that  he 
will  find  no  answer  in  the  world  of  sense,  for  it 
is  laid  down  on  no  maps.  He  may  try  to  avoid  the 
question,  but  it  will  force  itself  upon  him  whether  he 
will  or  not.  It  will  appeal  to  him  in  Nature  and  in 
all  the  varied  forms  of  Art,  but  most  of  all  in  music. 
For  there  is  no  speech  or  language  which  appeals  so 
directly  to  the  human  soul  as  music. 

Music,  when  sensuous  and  coming  of  a  lower  strain, 
appeals  to  the  lower  nature  with  seductive  power. 
It  is  all  absorbing  and  sense-intoxicating.  The  vic- 
tim knows  the  raptures  of  ecstasy  and  the  madness 
of  despair.  But  when  music  appeals,  not  from  sense 
to  sense,  but  from  soul  to  soul,  it  creates  an  unrest,  a 
dissatisfaction  with  the  things  of  sense,  and  leads  the 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY  GOETHE.     307 

soul  beyond  tliese  and  beyond  the  limits  of  formal 
reason  into  the  higher  realms  of  insight  and  faith,  — 
a  faith  that  is  beyond  reason,  not  below  it. 

Mignon  had  no  language  but  music,  and  indeed 
needed  none.  Eenouncing  the  mysterious  seductions 
of  sense,  she  rises 

*'  Higher  far, 
Upward  into  the  pure  realm 

Where  all  form 
In  one  only  form  dissolves,  "  — 

where  there  is  no  thought  of  sex, 

"  The  angel  choir 
Seek  not  to  know  of  youth  or  maid,"  — 

where  there  is  no  seal  of  silence,  and  soul  answers  to 
soul  in  its  own  language. 

In  the  drama  "  Gotz  with  the  Iron  Hand,"  we 
have  a  picture  of  Karl,  the  only  child  of  the  great 
hero.  This  play  is  rather  a  series  of  pictures 
than  a  genuine  drama.  There  is  no  central  point 
about  which  the  entire  interest  revolves,  and  the 
characters  are  interesting  simply  as  portraits  taken 
in  various  positions  and  placed  in  contrast  with 
each  other  as  light  and  shade.  Gotz,  the  hero  of 
the  play,  is  a  man  and  a  hero  after  one's  own  heart. 
His  veiy  presence  is  a  mighty  force.  He  creates 
about  him  that  enthusiasm  of  humanity  which  com- 
pels his  adherents  to  follow  him  to  death.  Like 
many  of  the  true  knights  of  old,  he  goes  about  right- 
ing the  wrong  wherever  he  finds  it.  As  an  individual 
he  is  without  fear  or  reproach.    Like  the  other  knights 


308  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

of  the  fifteenth  century,  he  asserts  his  liberty  and  in- 
dependence, and  this  liberty,  so  far  as  it  pertains  to 
himself  and  his  followers,  is  no  selfish,  licentious  lib- 
erty. It  is  liberty  to  correct  tlie  wrong  and  enforce 
the  right  according  to  his  own  ideas,  —  the  liberty  of 
asserting  his  moral  self  He  has  learned  the  mean- 
ing of  /  in  its  most  exalted  sense,  but  he  has  not 
learned  the  meaning  of  You.  A  new  era  has  dawned. 
Fraternity  is  now  the  word,  as  well  as  Liberty.  The 
new  era  is  irresistible,  and  Gotz  tenaciously  clinging 
to  the  relics  of  the  past,  obstinately  resisting  the 
progress  of  events,  is  overtaken  by  his  fate ;  for  Na- 
ture punishes  ignorance  and  narrow-mindedness  as 
she  punishes  criraes. 

The  calm,  quiet  picture  of  the  meek  little  Karl 
might  seem  to  have  no  connection  with  the  bold  ego- 
ism  of  Gotz,  or  with  the  leading  idea  that  men  can- 
not successfully  w^age  war  against  the  World-Histori- 
cal Spirit.  We  see  Karl  first  as  begging  his  aunt  for 
the  story  of  the  Good  Child.  That  he  should  ask  for 
a  story  of  a  good  child  rather  than  of  a  bad  one,  is  in- 
dicative of  Karl's  quiet,  effeminate  nature ;  for  most 
children  prefer  the  story  of  the  bad  child,  not  because 
they  themselves  are  bad,  but  because  they  like  the 
tragic,  and  are  sure  that  dramatic  collision  will  hap- 
pen when  the  bad  antagonizes  the  good.  The  aunt 
requires  the  boy  to  tell  her  the  familiar  story,  and 
he  is  taught  to  repeat  it  with  such  literal  exactness 
that  the  spirit  is  entirely  lost  in  the  verbiage.  Later 
the  father  comes,  and  the  joy  and  interest  of  the  boy 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY  GOETHE.     309 

are  manifested  by  going  to  the  provision  cellar  with 
his  aunt,  rather  than  to  the  stable  with  the  hostler. 

"  He  never  will  be  his  father,"  said  the  hostler, 
"  else  he  would  have  gone  with  me  to  the  stables." 

When  he  greets  his  father,  he  does  not  look  upon 
him  with  proud  admiration  as  a  hero.  He  simply 
asks,  "  Have  you  brought  me  anything  ? "  Then  he 
tells  his  father,  "  I  have  learned  a  great  deal." 

"  What  may  that  be  ? "  asks  the  father. 

"  Jaxthausen  is  a  village  and  a  castle  on  the  Jaxt, 
which  has  appertained  in  property  and  heritage  for 
two  hundred  years  to  the  lords  of  Berlichingen." 

"  Do  you  know  the  lords  of  Berlichingen  ? "  asks 
the  father,  who  sees  with  contempt  that  the  boy's 
learninsr  is  so  abstruse  that  he  does  not  know  his 
own  father.    "  To  whom  does  Jaxthausen  belong  ? " 

"Jaxthausen  is  a  village  and  a  castle  upon  the 
Jaxt—" 

"I  did  not  ask  that,"  returned  the  father.  "I 
knew  every  path,  pass,  and  ford  about  this  place  be- 
fore ever  I  knew  the  name  of  the  village,  castle,  or 
river.     Is  your  mother  in  the  kitchen  ? " 

"  Yes,  papa,  they  are  cooking  a  lamb  and  turnips." 

"  Do  you  know  that  too.  Jack  Turnspit  ?  " 

"  And  my  aunt  is  roasting  an  apple  for  me." 

"  Can't  you  eat  it  raw  ?  " 

"  It  tastes  better  roasted." 

And  when  he  is  introduced  to  Weislingen,  the 
child  says,  "  Be  merry,  dinner  will  soon  be  ready." 

"Happy  boy  ! "  says  Weislingen,  "  that  knowest  no 
worse  evil  than  the  delay  of  dinner." 


310  LIFE  AND    GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

This  picture  of  the  placid,  meek  boy  heightens  by 
contrast  the  heroic  valor  of  his  father.  We  have  said 
that  this  play  is  rather  a  series  of  contrasting  pictures 
than  a  genuine  drama.  Yet  the  little  scene  of  Karl 
with  his  father  has  a  closer  bearing  on  the  leading 
idea  of  the  play  than  at  first  appears.  As  the  father 
will  not  come  into  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the 
times,  but  clings  persistently  to  a  past  that  is  dying 
or  dead,  so  the  son  is  carelessly  indifferent  to  things 
and  facts  about  him,  and  clings  to  far-off,  meaning- 
less words.  The  son  ignores  the  Here,  as  the  father 
ignores  the  Now. 

Goethe's  greatest  drama  offers  little  scope  to  chil- 
dren ;  for,  with  the  first  kiss  of  Faust,  Margaret  is  no 
longer  a  child,  and  Euphorion,  the  offspring  of  Faust 
and  Helen,  is  more  of  an  allegorical  character  than 
livino-  flesh  and  blood.  Yet  in  connection  with  the 
child  Euphorion  occurs  a  passage  which  without 
question  emphasizes  the  high  estimate  that  Goethe 
eventually  placed  upon  the  family  relation,  — 

"  Love  in  human  wise  to  bless  us 
In  a  noble  pair  must  be, 
But  divinely  to  possess  us, 

It  must  form  a  precious  three,"  — 

and   the   child   of  this  ideal   union   is  significantly 
named  Euphorion,  "  Bringer  of  Good." 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that,  when  Goethe  wishes  to 
make  a  woman  specially  attractive,  he  surrounds  her 
with  beautiful  children.  "Nothing,"  said  Goethe,  "is 
more  charming  than  to  see  a  mother  with  a  cliild  upon 


CHILD  LIFE  AS  PORTRAYED  BY   GOETHE.     311 

her  arm."  "  Nothing  is  more  revered  than  a  mother 
among  many  children."  Ottilie  is  never  so  beautiful 
as  when  holding  Edward's  child.  Charlotte  in  the 
midst  of  her  younger  brothers  and  sisters  is  the  finest 
of  the  many  fine  pictures  in  "Werther."  Goethe  is 
said  to  have  borrowed  this  scene  from  Eousseau. 
He  borrowed  not  so  much  from  Eousseau  as  directly 
from  nature.  Because  Eousseau  had  given  an  equally 
beautiful  picture  was  no  reason  why  Goethe  should 
not  repeat  it.  As  Chaucer  was  accustomed  to  say 
that  he  took  possession  of  whatever  he  found  directed 
to  G.  Chaucer,  so  no  great  poet  need  hesitate  over 
any  material  at  hand,  provided  he  is  sure  the  divine 
spark  is  his  own. 

Goethe  not  only  develops  the  characters  of  his 
heroines  by  their  contact  with  children,  but  he  finds 
their  relation  to  children  the  readiest  way  of  describ- 
ing them.  With  a  single  stroke  of  his  pen  he  draws 
the  distinction  between  Theresa  and  Natalie  when 
he  says,  "  Theresa  trains  children,  Natalie  instructs 
them."  Wliile  Goethe  ornaments  Ottilie,  Charlotte, 
Natalie,  and  Mignon  with  children,  his  weak  charac- 
ters, like  the  frivolous  Philina  and  the  super-senti- 
mental Aurelia,  have  no  power  to  attract  them, — 
indeed,  children  are  repelled  from  them, — but  eventu- 
ally, when  Philina  develops  into  a  useful  woman, 
worthy  of  the  name,  children  are  drawn  to  her. 

Goethe  has  clearly  shown  that,  where  women  are 
denied  the  marriage  which  the  heart  prompts,  their 
resort  is  not,  as  has  been  hinted,  in  marriage  with 


312  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

another.  According  to  Goethe,  their  happiness  is 
then  found  in  useful  service,  especially  to  children. 
This  is  manifestly  the  case  with  Ottilie  and  with 
Mignon.  Not  to  be  crushed  with  the  agony  of  dis- 
appointment, and  not  to  realize  the  full  measure  of 
desolation,  they  spend  themselves  in  useful  activity, 
the  noblest  form  of  which  is  the  care  and  instruction 
of  children ;  and  it  may  safely  be  said  that  nowhere 
has  the  realistic  Goethe  followed  nature  more  closely 
than  when  he  makes  the  instruction  of  children  the 
happy  alternative  for  those  who  are  denied  the  perfect 
expression  of  love. 

Although  the  children  portrayed  by  Goethe  occupy, 
of  necessity,  a  subordinate  position,  they  fill,  as  we 
have  seen,  no  insignificant  parts.  As  an  artist  Goethe 
might  have  introduced  them  simply  as  ornaments, 
for  Beauty's  sake  alone ;  but  although  Goethe  is  pre- 
eminently an  artist,  he  is  none  the  less  a  rigid  moralist 
and  utilitarian  of  the  strictest  order.  Everywhere  in 
his  works  children  serve  a  wise  economy  and  earnest 
moral  purpose,  —  developing  the  individual,  as  in 
"  Meister,"  to  a  closer  sympathy  with  humanity ;  or 
compelling  the  individual  for  their  sake  to  a  more 
refined  degree  of  Morality,  as  in  the  "  Elective  Affini- 
ties " ;  or  demanding  of  society  as  vveU  as  the  individ- 
ual that  renunciation  which  recognizes  tlie  claims  of 
children  as  paramount  to  all  other  considerations,  — 
a  renunciation  which,  in  its  turn,  leads  to  the  higher 
advancement  of  society,  as  well  as  of  the  individual. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  313 


XI. 
HISTORY  OF  THE   FAUST  POEM. 

By  DENTON  J.   SNIDER. 

The  connection  between  the  composition  of  "Faust" 
and  Goethe's  own  life  has  always  been  felt  to  be  very 
intimate  ;  the  two  run  parallel.  "  Faust "  ushers  in 
the  spiritual  life  of  the  poet,  and  closes  with  his 
bodily  life;  the  work,  quiescent  for  long  periods, 
always  starts  afresh,  gathering  and  preserving  the 
bloom  of  many  rich  poetical  epochs.  Every  true 
reader  wishes  to  see  the  poem  unfolding  out  of  the 
life  of  the  poet,  and  also  to  behold  each  portion  de- 
veloping out  of  the  preceding  portion,  naturally  and 
in  due  order.  A  history  of  the  Faust  poem,  then, 
is  the  requirement;  which  will  be,  not  a  mere  record 
of  external  incidents  and  facts,  but  an  inner,  genetic 
history  of  the  work  in  its  double  relation  to  the  poet 
and  itself. 

Critical  opinion  is  divided  concerning  the  point  of 
time  when  Goethe  first  conceived  and  began  to  work 
upon  his  "  Faust."  The  prevailing  view  has  been 
that  the  beginning  was  made  about  the  year  1772 
or  1773,  when  the  poet  was  twenty-three  years  old. 
Says  Loeper  {Einleitung,  p.  5)  :   "  The  day  and  hour 


314  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

cannot  be  exactly  fixed  wlien  Goethe,  in  that  most 
fruitful  period  of  his  life  as  regards  dramatic  con- 
ceptions, 1772-76,  laid  hold  of  the  Faust  fable." 
But  Schroer,  in  the  Introduction  to  his  excellent 
commentary  on  the  poem,  has  given  good  reasons 
for  referring  its  beginning  at  least  as  far  back  as 
1769.  This  is  also  the  date  assigned  by  Eckermann 
and  Eiemer,  who  are  supposed  to  have  had  documents 
for  making  out  the  chronology  of  the  poet's  works 
now  inaccessible.  Two  citations  from  Goethe's  letters 
bearing  on  this  point  are  worth  translating.  "  It  is 
no  trifling  matter  to  represent  outside  of  one's  self, 
in  the  eighty-second  year,  what  one  has  conceived 
in  his  twentieth."  (Letter  to  Zelter,  June  1,  1831.) 
Goethe  was  twenty  years  old  in  1769.  Again,  in  a 
letter  to  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  March  17,  1832, 
written  five  days  before  his  death,  he  says :  "  It  is 
over  sixty  years  since  the  conception  of  '  Faust '  lay 
before  me  clear,  but  the  succession  of  its  parts  less 
complete." 

The  answer  to  these  and  similar  passages  is,  that 
the  old  Goethe  was  inaccurate  in  his  memory  of  the 
events  of  his  youth.  In  a  general  way,  however, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  conception  of  "  Faust "  goes 
back  nearly  forty  years  before  the  complete  edition 
of  the  First  Part,  in  1808,  and  fully  sixty  years  before 
the  completion  of  the  Second  Part.  Such  is  the  first 
grand  fact  of  the  poem,  a  fact  unique  in  literature ; 
in  one  long  human  life  the  work  blossoms,  unfolds, 
matures ;  this  life  of  the  Poet  is  but  his  outer  setting 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  315 

in  Time,  yet  it  deeply  suggests  the  life  of  the  legend 
developing  through  the  centuries. 

In  the  history  of  the  Faust  legend  we  see  how 
the  fable  of  Faust  has  unfolded  with  the  unfolding 
of  the  race,  and  bears  in  it  the  image  of  the  ages. 
The  true  mythus  is  a  growth,  a  never-ceasing  devel- 
opment of  an  original  germ,  in  which  the  people  have 
put  their  own  idea,  and  in  this  idea  the  spiritual 
march  of  the  world  mirrors  itself;  the  legend  grows 
with  the  growth  of  man,  out  of  the  same  seedling, 
to  the  same  altitude.  Now  Goethe  the  individual 
has  to  go  through  the  same  process  to  be  the  true 
singer ;  the  Faust  legend  in  its  primitive  germ  will 
sprout  within  him  in  early  youth,  will  grow  through 
life,  and  bear  its  last  fruits  in  extreme  old  age.  The 
poet  truly  lives  the  life  of  the  legend  which  he  em- 
bodies in  writ;  and  under  its  form  he  has  to  pass 
through  what  his  race  has  passed  through.  Before 
he  can  sing  his  task  to  completeness,  he  must  live, 
in  those  sixty  years  of  his,  ideally  sixty  centuries  of 
his  people  at  least.  In  him  the  Faust  legend  is  no 
artificial  thing,  picked  up  from  the  outside  to  make 
verses  about,  but  it  is  the  germinal  dot  of  his  being, 
which  blooms  afresh  in  one  individual  life,  the  life 
of  the  legend  and  the  race. 

It  is  then,  a  matter  of  importance  to  trace  back 
to  Goethe's  childhood  the  first  faint  impress  of  the 
legend  stamped  upon  his  susceptible  soul.  He  had 
seen  a  puppet-play  on  the  subject  of  Faust  in  Frank- 
fort when  a  boy, —  probably  had  seen  it  often;  then, 


316  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

we  may  suppose,  the  first  vague  possibility  was 
planted  in  him.  The  puppet-play  which  he  saw  is 
not  known,  but  it  was  probably  derived  from  Mar- 
lowe's "  Doctor  Faustus,"  which,  though  its  original 
source  was  the  old  Frankfort  Faust-book  of  Spiess, 
had  been  brought  back  to  Germany  by  strolling  bands 
of  English  players,  and  had  shaped  the  dramatic  form 
of  the  Faust  legend.  Thus  the  great  Elizabethan  era 
of  dramatic  creation  throws  out  a  line  of  descent  to 
the  German  poem  of  Goethe.  Shakespeare,  as  we  see 
from  several  allusions,  was  also  aware  of  the  Faust 
legend,  which,  however,  had  not  yet  been  ripened  for 
him  by  time  ;  hence,  with  true  instinct,  he  chose,  as 
his  grand  embodiment  of  the  Teutonic  mythus,  the 
story  of  Hamlet  the  Dane,  who  is  a  first-cousin  to 
German  Faust,  physically  and  spiritually,  and,  like 
Faust,  was  educated  at  the  Protestant  school  of 
Wittenberg. 

JPerhftps'we  can  point  out  the  very  egg  that  Mar- 
lowe's drama  laid  in  Goethe's  poem,  which  will  hatch 
it  out  to  a  bird  of  such  wonderful  plumage  and  pin- 
ion. In  the  soliloquy  that  begins  his  play,  Marlowe 
introduces  Faust  as  disgusted  with  all  knowledge,  and 
giving  himself  up  to  magic.  This  is  the  primitive 
germ  of  denial,  not  by  any  means  carried  out  to  its 
full  development  by  Marlowe ;  but  Goethe  will  pick 
up  the  same  germ  in  the  first  soliloquy  of  Faust, 
the  form  and  substance  of  which  are  given  by  Mar- 
lowe, and  let  it  unfold  under  the  storm  and  sunshine 
of  his  whole  life.     The  Faust  of  Marlowe  is  a  Protes- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  317 

tant  Faust,  tragic,  the  Devil  gets  him ;  through  the 
puppet-play  the  germinal  negation  of  that  Protestant 
Faust,  protesting  in  it  against  all  science  and  truth, 
drops  into  the  youthful  soul  of  Goethe,  most  fertile 
of  all  spiritual  soils.  '  Goethe  himself  has,  perhaps 
unconsciously,  told  his  own  tale ;  he  has  in  his 
"  Wilhelm  Meister  "  unfolded  the  history  of  a  germ 
laid  in  a  child's  soul  by  seeing  a  puppet-play ;  thence 
the  child  gets  a  tendency  or  impulse  which  unfolds 
into  its  life,  whose  record  is  that  novel. 

But  a  far  mightier  element  was  at  work  in  the  pe- 
riod, struggling,  fermenting  with  some  new  change. 
There  was  a  Faust  spirit  in  the  air  of  Germany,  of  all 
Europe,  during  Goethe's  youth,  and  it  was  giving  pre- 
monitions of  the  great  impending  Eevolution,  social 
and  political.  A  time  kindred  in  many  respects  to 
the  Eeformation  awoke  the  sleeping  Faust  legend 
out  of  its  peaceful  century's  slumber,  and  made  it 
spring  up  with  fresh  life  in  all  susceptible  German 
hearts,  particularly  in  those  of  the  young  poets. 
Several  of  Goethe's  immediate  circle  of  friends,  Miil- 
ler,  Klinger,  Lenz,  tried  their  hand  at  writing  Fausts. 
The  great  literary  protagonist  of  new  Germany,  Les- 
sing,  had  planned  and  partly  written  a  Faust  drama ; 
moreover,  he  had  distinctly  declared  that  the  Faust 
legend  offered  a  true  theme  for  a  great  national 
poem. 

The  restless  spirit  of  the  time,  struggling,  protest- 
ing, was  loudly  calling  for  its  poet,  when  the  young 
Goethe  stepped  forth  from  the  nameless  ranks  of  men 


318  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

witli  a  response  forever  memorable.  That  first  re- 
sponse was  "  Gotz  "  and  "  Werther,"  in  which  produc- 
tions the  literary  period  of  Germany  known  as  "  Storm 
and  Stress  "  culminated  in  a  vast  tumultuous  overflow 
of  emotion,  eternally  self-generating  and  eternally  self- 
destroying.  The  poet  finished  them  in  his  Titanic 
vein ;  they  had  of  course  to  be  tragic,  indeed  self-anni- 
hilating ;  their  end  must  be  in  the  final  conclusive  pro- 
test against  the  world  called  death.  Other  poems,  like 
"  Prometheus  "  and  "  The  Wandering  Jew,"  conceived 
in  the  same  spirit,  he  could  not  finish ;  in  them  the 
protest  refuses  to  protest  any  longer,  and  the  half- 
conscious  thought  seems  to  rise  out  of  chaos  and 
say  :  "  Dear  Poet,  the  problem  in  this  world  is  not  to 
die,  but  to  live ;  to  master  fate,  not  to  yield  thereto ; 
and  it  is  thy  function  to  reveal  such  mastery  to  mor- 
tal men," 

In  the  same  Titanic  vein  he  conceived  his  Faust, 
whose  disgust  at  knowledge  he  had  himself  experi- 
enced, chiefly  in  his  student  life  at  the  University  of 
Leipzig,  whereby  he  had  learned,  as  he  declares,  the 
vanity  of  all  human  science,  at  the  early  age  of  eigh- 
teen. He  wrote  much  upon  his  "Faust"  at  this 
stormy  period,  almost  finished  it  as  is  supposed,  yet 
did  not.  Why  ?  He  could  not ;  he  had  run  against  a 
wall  which  barred  all  progress,  and  which  rose  higher 
with  advancing  years.  He  first  felt  the  vague  in- 
stinct, then  came  to  the  clear  insight,  that  Faust  must 
be  redeemed,  must  pass  out  of  his  Titanic  protest  into 
reconciliation.     This  is  the  wall  which  stopped  him 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  319 

so  many,  many  years,  but  which  he  will  at  last  climb 
over,  when  he  will  reveal  the  Paradise  within.  Of 
"  Werther  "  he  says,  that  he  freed  himself,  by  writing 
it,  of  his  own  tragic  sentimentality;  he  slaughtered 
the  sentimental  hero  of  his  romance,  and  thereby  saved 
himself ;  through  such  vicarious  offering  of  his  shadow, 
he  escaped  the  ghost-world.  Clearly  it  will  be  his 
duty  next  time  to  save  his  hero  as  well  as  himself. 

No  sooner  had  he  looked  into  the  depths  of  the 
Faust  legend,  and  had  struggled  to  embody  it,  than 
he  discovered  his  inability.  It  was  the  truest  instinct 
which  led  him  to  lay  it  aside,  and  to  wait  for  the 
experience  of  life.  He  must  grow  into  the  legend 
as  the  legend  itself  grew.  This  became  the  method 
of  his  life,  —  to  unfold  into  completeness  ;  it  also  be- 
came the  method  of  his  poem  ;  his  own  life  gave  the 
literary  procedure.  "Faust"  unfolds,  step  by  step, 
not  simply  in  the  mind  of  its  author,  but  also  in  its 
outer  artistic  form,  Goethe  had  in  his  soul  a  vast 
germ,  which  could  bloom  and  be  fruitful  only  with 
time ;  the  poem,  imaging  the  poet's  process,  starts 
with  a  vast  germ  laid  in  Faust's  soul ;  this  germ  is 
what  develops  through  its  own  law  into  the  existent 
work,  a  self-unfolding  whole. 

In  this  sense  of  mirroring  the  poet's  innermost 
spiritual  development,  the  poem  is  a  biography; 
hardly  in  any  other  sense.  It  does  not  give  the 
events  of  Goethe's  life,  it  does  not  give  the  rise  of  its 
own  poetical  parts  in  chronological  order;  "Faust" 
was  written  backwards,  forwards,  and  in  between,  at 


320  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

various  times  of  life.  It  might  be  called  an  ideal 
biography  recording  in  the  highest  form  of  art  the  su- 
preme moments  of  the  supreme  man  of  the  age,  which 
moments  appear  in  the  poem  in  succession,  but  really 
are  the  products  of  years  of  waiting  and  preparation. 
The  mountain  peaks,  sunlit  in  the  distance,  we  from 
the  plain  see  in  continuous  line ;  but  there  are  valleys 
deep  and  broad  between  them.  Still  the  method  of 
the  poem  is  that  of  a  growth,  as  Goethe's  life  was  a 
growth.  Here  the  poem  and  the  life  fall  together,  in 
this  deepest  fact  of  spiritual  unfolding. 

Not  alone  in  life  and  art,  but  also  in  nature,  Goe- 
the saw  the  same  essential  fact.  Nature  is  a  self- 
unfolding  too;  from  a  primitive  form  she  develops 
into  a  variety  of  forms;  the  leaf  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom  is  to  become  flower,  fruit,  and  even  tree. 
"  The  Metamorphosis  of  Plants,"  a  treatise  by  the  poet 
on  botany,  is  a  beautiful  image  of  the  Faust  method, 
a  very  Faust  drama  of  plant  life,  and  indeed  the  pro- 
cess of  Goethe's  own  development.  The  poem  grew 
as  the  flower ;  life,  with  its  rain  and  sunshine,  fos- 
tered it.  Yet  we  must  not  think  that,  because  it  is 
life,  it  is  not  an  idea ;  the  idea  is  the  very  essence 
of  life. 

In  the  history  of  the  composition  of  the  First  Part 
of  Faust,  there  are  two  distinct  periods,  which  are 
marked  by  definite  dates :  these  are  the  first  period, 
ending  with  the  edition  of  1790,  and  the  second  pe- 
riod, ending  with  the  edition  of  1808.  These  two 
periods  are  the  clear  landmarks,  most  important  for 


HISTORY  OF   THE  FAUST  POEM.  321 

understanding  tlie  growth  of  the  book,  as  well  as  the 
drift  of  the  discussion  upon  it ;  we  shall  try  to  state 
what  was  contributed  to  the  work  by  each  of  these 
periods,  shunning  as  far  as  possible  the  vast  fog-world 
of  conjecture  which  environs  the  poem  to  infinity. 

In  1790  Goethe  gathered  his  Faust  efforts  of  more 
than  twenty  years,  and  printed  what  he  called  "  Faust, 
a  Frao-ment,"  containinsr  a  little  less  than  one  half  of 
the  present  First  Part.  In  it,  beside  lesser  omissions, 
were  two  great  gaps,  the  first  of  which  began  with  the 
second  soliloquy  of  Faust,  and  extended  to  Mephisto's 
interview  with  the  student,  thus  constituting  the  in- 
tellectual kernel  of  the  poem,  —  altogether  about  1,165 
lines  in  the  original.  Doubtless  some  portions  of 
this  large  deficit  had  been  already  sketched,  —  as,  for 
instance,  the  scene  of  the  Easter  festival ;  but  the 
whole  was  too  fragmentary  to  be  published  even  in 
this  Fragment.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  omitted 
section  is  in  the  main  the  unfolding  of  Mephisto. 
This  deepest  transformation  of  time  and  human  expe- 
rience the  young  poet  could  not  manage  :  it  was  the 
first  wall  that  he  ran  against.  Still  he  saw  that  the 
tiling  had  to  be  managed ;  the  grand  difficulty  was, 
How  ?  Wait,  patient  man  !  till  the  germ  blossom 
and  ripen ;  wait,  and  the  secret  will  be  told  thee  in 
full.  Hardly  less  significant  is  the  second  great 
gap,  containing  those  last  scenes  in  which  Mephisto 
is  subjected  to  Faust,  and  is  made  an  instrument  for 
the  attempted  rescue  of  Margaret,  who,  nigh  to  death, 
is  lying  in  the  triple  prison  of  the  law,  of  insanity, 

21 


322  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

and  of  her  own  conscience.  The  poet  probably  knew, 
in  a  vague  way,  that  all  this  had  to  be  done  too ;  but 
he  could  not  get  clear  about  the  manner  of  doing  it. 
With  time,  however,  and  valiant  struggle,  this  last 
dark  gap  will  be  overarched  with  a  perfect  rainbow 
of  poetry. 

Such  were  the  two  grand  omissions,  highly  sig- 
nificant of  the  poet  and  his  development.  But  that 
which  was  announced  in  the  Fragment  of  1790,  and 
announced  for  all  time,  was  the  primitive  denial  of 
Faust  and  the  fall  of  Margaret.  These  two  phases, 
in  their  very  statement,  we  feel  to  be  connected  by 
some  secret  thread;  to  raise  this  secret  thread  into 
clear  daylight  is  the  great  poetic  problem.  The  first 
soliloquy,  which  was  then  printed,  gives  the  germ  of 
the  whole  poem,  the  original  dual  forces  from  which 
it  springs  :  negation  on  the  one  hand,  aspiration  on 
the  other.  Then  takes  place  that  prodigious  leap  to 
the  scenes  in  which  Mephisto  appears  a  full-fledged 
active  person  in  the  world.  What  connection  be- 
tween that  first  denial  and  this  sudden  fiend,  with 
final  outcome  of  his  work  in  the  fate  of  Margaret  ? 
Such  is  the  chasm  over  which  the  bridge  is  to  be 
built,  and  the  poet  must  live  it  into  being.  From 
that  primal  negation  as  the  germ,  Mephisto  will  un- 
fold ;  and  Faust,  from  the  dry  student  and  profes- 
sor, will  be  transformed  into  the  youthful,  passionate 
lover. 

In  this  Fragment  we  can  observe  two  chief  expe- 
riences, that  of  the  university  with  its  unsatisfactory 


HISTORY  OF   THE  FAUST  POEM.  323 

knowledge,  and  that  of  a  great  breach  in  the  Family ; 
both  lay  in  the  life  of  the  young  Goethe.  But  to 
show,  step  by  step,  how  the  Family  is  destroyed  by 
that  first  negation,  is  the  work  of  a  far  longer  and 
deeper  experience,  which  speaks  of  dire  encounters 
with  the  Devil  himself,  whose  genesis  in  this  part 
is  the  supreme  intellectual  feat  of  the  book.  In 
the  Fragment  of  1790  we  also  find  the  "  Witches' 
Kitchen,"  written  at  Eome  in  1787.  This  scene,  in 
connection  with  "  Auerbach's  Cellar,"  introduces  us 
to  the  Perverted  World,  the  true  realm  of  Mephisto, 
and  furnishes  the  immediate  motive  for  Margaret's 
fall.  But  this  phase  of  the  poem  is  not  complete  in 
the  Fragment;  the  Perverted  World  is  still  to  receive 
an  addition  in  "Walpurgis  Night." 

The  reception  given  by  the  public  to  the  Fragment 
of  1790  was  by  no  means  favorable ;  it  was  not  at 
all  to  be  compared  to  the  mighty  outburst  of  enthu- 
siasm that  hailed  the  appearance  of  "  Werther." 
Goethe  himself,  in  a  half-humorous,  half-complaining 
way,  hints  the  lack  of  appreciation  in  the  "  Prologue 
on  the  Stage,"  prefixed  first  to  the  edition  of  1808. 
Olympian  Goethe,  then,  does  want  some  recognition 
from  mortals  for  his  world-compelling  work.  A 
slight  undertone  of  disappointment  one  may  hear 
from  him  at  this  time,  as  he  sadly  strings  his  lyre ; 
but  cheer  up,  mighty  heart !  for  no  man  knows 
better  than  thou,  "  What  glitters  is  born  for  the  mo- 
ment, what  is  genuine  endures  for  all  time."  If  the 
general  public  was  cold  toward  the  work,  the  criti- 


324  LIFE  AND    GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

cism  of  the  time  was  hardly  better,  and  showed  no 
appreciation  of  the  significance  of  the  poem.  Indeed, 
wlieu  did  it,  or  how  can  it  ?  Loeper  has  dug  out  for 
us  some  hints  of  its  tendency  which  are  interesting. 
It  hiid  hold  savagely  of  small  external  details ;  it 
declared  the  language  to  be  "  dark,  unintelligible," 
the  usual  charge  of  the  ready  critic  against  every- 
thing which  he  does  not  take  in  with  his  newspaper 
glance.  It  declared  also,  that  the  great  master  of 
German  speech  wrote  bad  German.  Give  us,  0 
critic  !  some  of  your  good  German.  And  the  style 
was  not  elegant,  being  written  "in  the  tone  of  a 
street  ballad-singer " ;  many  of  its  incidents  and 
expressions  were  "  such  as  only  the  lowest  populace 
could  take  delight  in."  So  it  is.  What  of  it  ?  Ima- 
gine  a  "  Taust,"  or  a  "  Hamlet,"  appearing  to-day ; 
then  imagine  what  the  Press  and  Magazine  would 
make  of  it.  Such  a  lack  of  recognition  is  not  a 
matter  evitable  in  the  present  state  of  the  human 
mind,  —  nay,  not  a  matter  regrettable,  when  truly 
looked  into ;  it  is  the  fiery  discipline  which  tests 
the  permanent  value  of  the  great  book,  as  well  as 
the  literary  grit  of  the  author.  The  diurnal  writ 
cannot  possibly  measure  the  eternal  writ,  which  is 
incommensurable,  —  cannot  have  any  sympathy  with 
it  or  knowledge  of  it,  —  hence  can  only  light  the  fires 
of  depreciation. 

But  under  this  ephemeral  judgment  another  judg- 
ment, that  of  the  eternal  kind,  was  forming  slowly 
but  surely.     Not   till  the  great  book  takes  posses- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  325 

sion  of  great  souls,  and  grows  to  be  a  living  fibre 
of  tbeir  spiritual  being,  has  it  reached  the  tribunal 
which  is  to  adjudicate  its  rights ;  then  it  will  enter 
upon  its  true  inheritance,  and  commence  receiving 
even  its  canonization.  After  many  years  the  mighti- 
est thinkers  of  philosophic  Germany,  Schelling  and 
Heoel.  besrin  to  utter  the  ultimate  decision  upon 
this  Fragment.  Tlie  first  German  critical  minds, 
the  two  Schlegels,  also  contribute  their  part  in  the 
mean  time  ;  their  school,  the  modern  Eomantic,  gives 
continuous  help  for  its  appreciation.  The  most  sym- 
pathetic and  deepest-seeing  of  all  these  early  views 
is  that  of  Schelling,  which  deserves  special  emphasis 
at  this  point.  Schelling  could  have  known  only  the 
first  Fragment  when  he  delivered  his  lectures  on  the 
"Method  of  Academic  Study"  at  Jena  and  "Wiirz- 
burg,  1802-5 ;  yet  he  seems  to  divine,  not  merely 
the  completed  First  Part,  but  the  completed  Second 
Part,  in  the  final  redemption  and  completion  of  the 
hero.  The  great  philosopher  turns  a  rapt  seer  in 
speaking  of  the  poem,  "which  as  yet  must  be  grasped 
by  anticipation  rather  than  by  knowledge,"  and  he  at 
once  proclaims  it  to  be  "  an  original  work  in  every 
respect,  only  to  be  compared  with  itself,  and  resting 
on  itself"  He  sees  far  in  advance  that  "  the  con- 
flict must  be  solved  in  a  higher  way,"  and  that  Faust, 
"  elevated  to  higher  spheres,  will  be  completed,"  —  the 
very  vision  of  the  end  of  the  Second  Part.  It  looks 
almost  as  if  the  poet  had  followed  the  prophecy  of 
the  philosopher,  or  that  the  latter  somehow  had  got- 


326  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

ten  a  peep  into  the  workshop  of  the  poet.  Moreover, 
Schelling  feels  the  great  scientific  value  of  the  book, 
"  sufucient  to  rejuvenate  science  in  this  age " ;  he 
seems  to  feel  that  the  development  of  the  poem  rests 
upon  the  same  foundation  as  science  itself,  and  ad- 
vises its  study  to  all  "who  wish  to  penetrate  into 
the  true  sanctuary  of  Nature."  Yet  this  does  not 
hinder  it  from  being  philosophic  in  the  profound- 
est  sense,  and  he  declares  that,  "  if  any  poem  can  be 
called  philosophic,  this  predicate  must  be  applied 
to  Goethe's  '  Faust '  alone."  Thus  the  two  extreme 
poles  of  the  great  poem  are  indicated :  it  has  the 
true  development  of  Nature,  and  the  true  idea  of 
Philosophy,  in  harmony ;  moreover,  it  is  poetic  in 
the  best  sense,  yet  is  philosophic  also,  revealing  "  a 
new  kind  of  Fate,"  the  Fate  not  merely  of  the  Deed, 
but  also  of  Knowledge.  Thus  the  mighty  twins, 
Poetry  and  Philosophy,  eternally  fighting  and  claw- 
incj  one  another  in  the  brains  of  lesser  critics  and 
poets,  unite  in  one  grand  symphonious  strain  before 
the  mind  of  Schelling,  as  he  casts  his  look  upon 
Goethe's  poetic  creation.  Such  is  the  broad  view 
of  the  German  philosopher,  —  quite  the  universal 
view,  spoken  in  a  few  far-glancing  prophetic  words 
toward  the  close  of  his  lectures.  Nothing  better  has 
been  said  or  can  be  said  upon  the  poem,  and  the 
interpreter  has  but  to  fill  out  in  detail  the  vast  out- 
lines of  Schelling's  hints,  avoiding  the  merely  poetic, 
or  merely  jjhilosophic,  or  merely  scientific,  or  any 
other  merely  one-sided  method  of  exposition. 


HISTORY  OF   THE  FAUST  POEM.  327 

Hegel's  profound  appreciation  of  Faust  is  well 
known  to  his  readers,  but  it  has  to  be  sought  chiefly 
from  books  of  his  which  were  published  after  the 
completed  Faust  of  1808,  and  hence  need  not  be  cited 
in  this  connection.  Still,  in  one  of  his  early  works, 
"  The  Phenomenology  of  Spirit,"  finished  to  the  thun- 
der of  the  cannon  at  the,  battle  of  Jena,  he  gives  a 
subtle  interpretation  of  the  Earth-Spirit  in  the  He- 
gelian manner,  showing  that  the  fragment  had  pro- 
duced so  strong  an  impression  upon  his  thought,  that 
he  assigned  it  a  place  among  the  historic  phases  of 
consciousness. 

Many  years  have  passed  since  the  appearance  of 
the  Fragment  in  1790 ;  but  clearly  it  is  creating  its 
world,  and  rearing  its  own  readers.  It  has  gone 
deeply  into  the  great  spirits  of  the  time  and  found 
lodgmen.t  there ;  assuredly  they  will  take  care  of  it, 
they  will  impart  to  it  a  share  of  their  own  immortal- 
ity. That  which  makes  the  great  book  immortal  is 
that  it  lives  in  the  highest  souls,  those  truly  immor- 
tal. "With  time  it  will  be  preserved  against  the  mil- 
lions and  the  ravages  of  time.  In  this  matter  one 
feels  always  like  speaking  to  the  poet  face  to  face, 
and  addressing  him  out  of  the  future  centuries,  not  for 
his  sake,  as  he  hears  it  not,  but  for  the  sake  of  all 
toilsome  unknown  workers  :  —  "  Take  heart,  0  much- 
tried  scribe  of  the  ages  !  be  not  cast  down  because  the 
phantom  of  the  populace  buzzes  neglectfully  past 
thee ;  it  will  long  be  dead  when  thou  art  living,  nay, 
it   will  be  chiefly  known  hereafter   for  not  having 


328  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

known  thee.  Gird  up  thy  loins  anew ;  a  yet  greater 
task  is  before  thee,  nothing  less  than  to  generate  out 
of  the  soul  of  thy  time  the  Devil  lurking  therein,  and 
to  reveal  him  in  body  to  the  sons  of  men.  The 
greatest  task  laid  upon  human  scribe  is  thine;  up, 
and  be  a-doing,  courageous  heart !  tliou  alone  of  the 
milliards  of  these  later  centuries  canst  perform  it." 

Thus  we  may  pass  from  the  first  period,  embracing 
the  Frafjmeut  of  1790 ;  we  now  come  to  the  second 
period  of  composition,  which  lies  between  the  Frag- 
ment of  1790  and  the  completed  First  Part  of  1808. 
In  this  period  the  two  capital  additions  are  the  gen- 
esis of  Mephisto,  as  Evil  Principle,  oiit  of  Faust's 
denial,  and  the  beginning  of  his  subjection  to  Faust 
in  the  attempted  rescue  of  Margaret.  The  two  great 
gaps  which  we  noted  in  the  Fragment  are  thus  filled, 
and  the  poem  in  its  First  Part  attains  completeness 
after  almost  forty  years  of  effort.  These  are  doubtless 
the  gaps  of  which  Goethe  repeatedly  speaks  in  his 
correspondence  with  Schiller,  and  whose  problem, 
though  quiescent  for  long  periods,  never  fully  left  him. 
The  genetic  hint,  scarcely  observable  in  the  Fragment, 
has  now  unfolded  into  a  conscious  purpose,  and  the 
idea  of  final  purification  and  restoration,  vague  and 
unclear  in  the  Fragment,  breaks  forth  into  the  full 
clearness  of  knowledge. 

The  Perverted  World,  or  Mephisto's  realm,  also 
receives  its  completion  in  the  two  scenes  of  "Wal- 
purgis  Night."  We  saw  in  the  Fragment  the  begin- 
ning and  wild  progress  of  this  Perverted  World  in 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  329 

two  other  scenes,  "Auerbach's  Cellar"  and  "Witches' 
Kitchen "  ;  now  it  is  unfolded  into  correspondence 
with  a  total  plan.  To  this  period  belong  the  two 
Prologues,  in  which  the  poet  indicates  a  clear  con- 
sciousness of  the  nature  of  his  theme  and  of  his  work. 
Moreover,  in  the  "Prologue  in  Heaven,"  the  Lord 
definitely  promises  that  he  will  lead  the  struggling 
Faust  through  to  light,  in  which  promise  we  have  a 
glimpse  beyond  the  First  Part  of  "  Faust "  into  the 
Second  Part. 

The  reception  of  the  completed  First  Part  was  far 
more  favorable  than  the  reception  of  the  Fragment 
had  been.  On  all  sides,  there  seems  to  have  been  a 
pretty  general  agreement  as  to  the  prodigious  signifi- 
cance of  the  book.  But  the  way  had  been  prepared. 
The  Fragment  during  eighteen  years  had  been  absorbed 
into  many  appreciative  spirits,  who  were  not  only 
ready  for,  but  had  vaguely  anticipated,  the  completed 
work.  Moreover  the  scope  of  Goethe's  other  activi- 
ties,—  scientific,  poetic,  literary, —  as  well  as  the 
unity  of  his  genius  in  all  these  activities,  had  begun 
to  dawn  generally  upon  his  countrymen.  Still  there 
seems  to  have  been  nothing  like  an  adequate  exposi- 
tion of  it  till  ten  years  had  passed,  when  Schubarth's 
book  on  "Faust "(1818)  opens  the  long  and  ever-in- 
creasing list  of  commentaries,  a  list  manifestly  not 
to  be  closed  by  the  present  book.  The  criticism  of 
"Faust"  in  Germany  has  been  a  prolific  plant  in 
fruitful  soil,  with  many  local  turns  and  variations 
which  no  foreigner  cares  to  follow.     It  has  fluctuated 


330  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

with  tlie  spiritual  tendencies  of  the  German  people, 
indicating  plainly  that  the  great  poem  always  mirrors 
itself  differently  at  different  periods,  and  must  have 
with  the  new  epoch  a  new  interpretation.  The  older 
phase  of  Faust  criticism  seems  to 'occupy  itself  more 
with  the  thought  or  idea  of  the  poem,  though  not 
neglecting  philological,  mythological,  and  other  aids. 
This  phase  is  properly  the  philosophic,  receiving  its 
light  from  the  unparalleled  sunburst  of  German  Phi- 
losophy during  the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century. 
The  later  phase  of  Faust  criticism  seems  to  concern 
itself  more  about  the  external  unity,  or  rather  the  want 
of  unity,  in  the  poem ;  its  metliod  is  the  historic,  and 
shows  the  reaction  against  philosophy.  Both  these 
phases  have  their  strong  and  weak  sides,  both  supple- 
ment pretty  well  each  other's  defects.  Let  not  the 
true-hearted  student  yield  to  the  cry,  that  he  should 
throw  away  the  old,  and  take  the  new  criticism,  which 
is  seriously  inferior  to  the  old,  or  philosophic,  in  depth 
of  insight,  while  both  need  much  correction  in  regard 
to  sobriety  of  judgment. 

The  recent  criticism  of  the  First  Part  of  "  Faust " 
turns  chiefly  upon  the  manner  in  which  the  two 
editions  of  1790  and  of  1808  are  to  be  viewed.  The 
one  set  of  critics  sees  in  the  completed  First  Part  a 
double  and  inconsistent  plan,  two  contradictory  ideas, 
held  together  only  by  the  art  of  the  bookbinder,  and 
not  by  that  of  the  poet.  The  additions  made  in  1808 
to  the  Fragment  are,  it  is  declared,  really  a  different, 
nay,  an  antagonistic  poem.     Kuno  Fischer,  who  may 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.         831 

be  taken  as  a  representative  man  of  this  party,  says 
that  the  two  sections  of  the  poem,  that  of  1790  and 
that  of  1808,  "proceed  from  tendencies  fundamentally 
diverse  ;  they  are  in  character  wholly  heterogeneous, 
and  they  are  so  to  the  extent  of  complete  opposi- 
tion." Thus  our  First  Part,  over  whose  completion 
we  shouted  such  a  hallelujah  of  rejoicing,  has  by 
the  completion  really  been  made  incomplete,  and  old 
Goethe  has  been  caught  playing  on  the  public  another 
of  his  tricks  of  mystification.  Fischer  goes  on  to 
state  that  there  is  a  fundamental  difference  between 
the  two  editions  in  the  conception  of  both  Mephisto 
and  Faust.  In  the  Fragment  of  1790  Mephisto  is 
declared  not  to  be  the  Devil,  such  as  he  is  in  the 
later  work,  but  a  mischievous  imp,  "an  elementar}^ 
ghost,"  in  the  service  of  the  Earth-Spirit.  In  reply 
to  this  view,  Oettingen  (Vorlesungen  ilber  Faust, 
Vol.  I.  p.  10)  points  out  numerous  passages  in  the 
Fragment  which  directly  contravene  Fischer's  as- 
sumption, showing  that  Mephisto  is  regarded  in  them 
as  the  genuine  Devil.  Still,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
the  Devil  in  lighter  moods  is  fond  of  his  impish  joke, 
harmless  enough ;  witness  the  scene  in  "  Auerbach*s 
Cellar."  But  this  milder  phase  may  well  consist 
with  his  deepest  deviltry.  Still  further,  Fischer 
states  that  there  is  a  contradiction  in  the  character 
of  Faust :  in  the  original  conception  he  was  a  sort  of 
Prometheus  in  conflict  with  the  established  rule  of 
the  Gods,  a  genuine  world-stormer,  and  hence  tragic ; 
but  in  the  later,  added  part,  the  idea  of  purification 


332  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

through  struggle  and  suffering  was  introduced,  with 
final  reconciliation  of  the  hero  purged  of  Titanic 
denial.  Again  the  answer  has  been  made  to  this 
argument,  that  it  really  proves  no  inherent  contra- 
diction, but  rather  the  contrary ;  Faust  does  begin  as 
a  world-storming  Titan,  but  the  whole  course  of  the 
poem  shows  him  cleansed  of  his  Titauism,  and  com- 
ing into  harmony  with  the  world-order.  Still  it 
continues  to  be  stubbornly  maintained  that  the 
Fragment  has  the  unity,  and  the  total  work  has  the 
split  from  top  to  bottom. 

It  is  perhaps  characteristic  of  the  intellectual  Ger- 
many of  to-day,  that  this  theory  of  Faust  —  shaded, 
to  be  sure,  in  manifold  colors,  from  hazy  gray  to  jet- 
black  —  is  held  by  the  most  considerable  German 
critics  of  the  present  time,  Julian  Schmidt,  Fried- 
rich  Yischer,  Karl  Biedermann,  etc.  It  finds  its  first 
germ  in  C.  H.  Weisse's  book  (1837),  one  of  the  earlier 
interpretations  of  "Faust,"  but  the  theory  there  is  not 
at  all  drawn  out  to  its  later  consequences.  A  kind 
of  cult  of  the  fragment  of  1790  seems  to  have  arisen 
in  Germany,  intimated  in  the  words  of  Gutzkow : 
"'Faust'  as  Fragment  is  much  dearer  to  all  of  us, 
than  the  completed  '  Faust.'  "  Who  are  all  of  us  ? 
Certainly  not  the  whole  adoring  the  Whole,  but  some 
fragment  worshipping  the  Fragment.  The  true  and 
final  conclusion  of  the  theory  is  boldly  drawn  by 
Gwinner  and  others,  who  maintain  that  the  sole 
unity  is  the  Fragment,  and  that  the  real  fragment  is 
the  completed  Part,  while  the  completed  two  parts 


HISTORY  OF   THE  FAUST  POEM.  333 

of  "  Faust"  are  but  the  fragment  of  a  fragment.  The 
course  of  the  poem  runs  thus  :  it  begins  perfect,  grows 
to  imperfection,  and  ends  in  a  kind  of  self-annihila- 
tion, doubly  discordant  and  dissevered.  The  poet, 
too,  in  the  utter  perversity  of  his  nature,  calls  his 
complete  work  a  fragment,  and  his  fragment  a  com- 
plete Part,  and  his  two  fragments,  doubly  scattered, 
his  complete  work.  Truly  the  saying  of  ancient 
Hesiod,  that  the  half  is  more  than  the  entire  thing, 
has  now  become  a  reality,  nay,  a  twofold  reality,  for 
the  fragment  is  the  whole,  and  the  whole  is  the  frag- 
ment. 

In  such  manner  certain  sets  of  German  critics 
seem  to  have  turned  the  Faust  poem  upside  down, 
and  are  attempting  to  read  the  book  that  way ;  while 
Father  Goethe  himself  is  set  on  his  head,  and  is 
asked  to  walk  somehow  with  feet  in  the  air.  They 
call  it  the  layer  theory,  inasmuch  as  "  Faust "  is  not 
taken  as  a  grand  architectural  work,  but  a  series  of 
stratified  scenes,  piled  like  stones  one  on  top  of  an- 
other, which  the  critical  mattock  can  pry  apart  and 
scale  off  into  pieces  large  and  small.  Of  course  the 
divisive  process  need  not  and  will  not  stop  at  any 
given  point  short  of  infinity :  if  we  can  split  the 
completed  work  into  two  or  four  portions,  why  not 
into  a  dozen,  and  so  on,  according  to  the  endless  di- 
visibility of  matter  ?  Schroer  has  taken  hold  of  the 
Margaret  episode,  the  most  closely  connected  part  of 
all  "Faust,"  in  this  spirit,  and  has  divided  it  into  two 
distinct  portions,  with  still  further  subdivision  into 


334  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

separate  pictures,  moving  one  after  another  in  a  sort 
of  panoramic  fashion.  Upon  which  procedure  one 
observation  may  be  made :  anatomy  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  all  true  critical,  as  well  as  physiological 
science ;  but  the  whole  purpose  and  end  of  it  is,  not 
to  leave  the  scattered  parts  lying  about  at  random, 
but  to  recombine  them  into  the  one  complete  living 
conception  of  the  bodily  or  poetic  organism. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  that  the  discussion  on 
"  Faust "  seems  to  be  running  parallel  to  that  on 
another  great  poetical  book,  the  first  Literary  Bible, 
old  Homer.  The  unity  of  both  is  torn  to  shreds  ;  the 
notion  of  unity  seems  the  reddest  of  red  rags  to  the 
present  infuriated  critical  bull,  wildly  laying  about 
itself  in  Germany.  It  is  bent  desperately  on  fighting 
the  fact,  on  proving  by  a  violent  toss  of  the  horns  that 
the  fact  is  not  the  fact,  but  some  other  ghost.  The 
unity  of  the  Iliad  was  the  prime  fact  of  it,  with  few 
slight  protests,  ancient  and  modern,  up  to  the  time  of 
Wolff,  —  the  fact  which  gave  it  quite  its  chief  worth, 
and  which  preserved  it  through  so  many  centuries. 
Yet  we  have  lived  to  see  a  German  critic  arrange  the 
Iliad  anew  into  a  number  of  disparate  songs,  accord- 
ing to  the  principle  of  discord,  and  not  of  unity  ;  as  if 
the  supreme  object  of  criticism  were  to  turn  all  the 
harmonies  of  the  earth  back  into  chaos  and  old  night. 
The  next  thing  will  be  an  edition  of  "  Taust,"  not  in 
the  well-ordered  unity  in  which  the  poet  left  it,  but 
dislocated  by  the  lever  of  the  critic,  and  stratified  anew 
according  to  his  method  of  its  origin.     Tear  down  the 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  335 

grand  Gothic  cathedral,  pile  up  the  stones  in  layers ; 
then  we  have  the  thing  as  it  was  originally,  in  the 
womb  of  Mother  Earth,  and  our  brilliant  critical  sa- 
gacity finds  its  true  outcome  in  the  realm  of  primeval 
disorder. 

Thus,  however,  has  the  critic  furnished  in  himself 
the  best  commentary  on  the  poem ;  by  his  denial  he 
has  come  to  exemplify  in  his  own  person  the  denial 
of  Faust ;  he  is  transformed  to  a  Faust  denying  Faust, 
through  the  very  excess  of  study  and  shrewdness.  It 
is  indeed  strange.  One  asks,  What  can  the  sceptical 
understanding  not  do?  The  world  turns  to  haze,  with- 
out solidity ;  the  last  book  of  the  ages  is  getting  to 
be  as  mythically  uncertain  as  the  first ;  and  Goethe, 
scarce  fifty  years  in  his  grave,  whom  many  hundreds 
of  people  now  living  have  seen  and  remember,  is  be- 
ginning to  be  a  fable,  and  to  share  already  the  fate  of 
his  eldest  brother,  the  Chian  bard. 

Such  is  the  one  line  of  Faust  criticism,  much  main- 
tained in  Germany ;  yet  even  there  it  has  valiant 
opponents,  who  meet  the  enemy  at  every  point  with 
huge  stones  and  sharp  javelins.  This  new  school  may 
be  regarded  as  a  necessary  reaction  against  the  ex- 
cesses of  the  philosophical  school,  which  was  too  often 
inclined  to  build  an  air-palace  of  its  own,  with  little 
foundation  in  the  poem.  It  is,  however,  itself  com- 
mitting excesses  which  foretell  its  doom ;  Germany 
will  weary  of  it,  as  she  wearied  of  the  earlier  criticism, 
and  will  return  to  seek  for  the  rational  idea  of  the 
work,  the  idea  which  generates  it,  and  is  not  foisted 


336  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

upon  it.  The  facts  which  the  great  industry  and 
microscopic  aciiteness  of  the  new  criticism  have 
brought  to  light  will  not  be  lost,  but  will  be  united  in 
a  new  and  deeper  synthesis  with  the  thought  of  the 
poem.  The  only  sound  method  is  to  accept  the  facts 
fully  and  sincerely,  then  to  see  tliem  in  their  com- 
pleteness, which  brings  them  into  a  connected,  indeed 
creative  whole.  And  the  prime  fact  is,  Goethe  has 
left  this  "Faust"  as  a  unity,  arranged  according  to 
an  idea,  not  by  chance,  or  by  mere  chronological  se- 
quence. This  guiding  idea  which  orders  the  poem 
must  always  be  the  main  thing  for  the  one  who  wishes 
to  comprehend,  and  not  merely  enjoy,  the  work. 

Still,  as  Nature  often  reveals  her  secret  in  her  mon- 
strosities, it  is  worth  while  to  see  the  ground  of  tliis 
new  layer  theory.  There  is  a  difference  between  the 
part  of  "Faust"  which  appeared  in  1790,  and  the 
added  part  which  appeared  in  1808.  The  difference 
exists,  but  the  deeper  fact  is  the  unity  which  locks 
together  these  different  parts.  In  the  Fragment  the 
problem  is  stated;  in  the  completed  Faust  it  is  solved. 
But  many  cannot  see  the  solution  ;  many,  too,  believe 
that  there  is  no  solution  ;  these  must  prefer  the  Frag- 
ment. Such  minds  will  always  divide  the  First  Part 
of  "Faust"  into  two  parts,  and  select  their  favorite: 
individual  character  and  insight  at  last  determine  the 
choice.  But  the  poet  had  certainly  a  different  view, 
and  if  we  wish  to  work  in  his  spirit,  we  must  follow 
the  way  he  points,  and  grapple  with  the  work  till  it 
yield  its  secret  solvent  thought. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  337 

If  the  new  criticism  must  prove  unsatisfactory,  nay, 
in  its  extreme  tendency,  repugnant,  to  those  who  wish 
to  see  the  poem  as  Goethe  saw  it  and  left  it,  that  same 
criticism  has  been  very  beneficial  in  turning  a  strong 
light  upon  the  essential  and  most  difficult  fact  in  the 
work,  namely,  the  genesis  of  Mephisto.  It  has  com- 
pelled those  of  us  who  believe  in  the  Faust  poem 
rather  than  in  the  Faust  fragment  to  look  into  the 
great  book  anew,  under  a  keener  light,  and  to  find 
the  unity  in  a  deeper  sense  than  it  has  yet  been 
found.  I  believe  that  the  poem  comes  out  of  these 
critical  fires  more  fully  appreciated,  seen  in  clearer, 
greater,  truer  outlines,  than  was  possible  without 
such  discipline. 

The  genesis  of  Mephisto,  which  lies  between  the 
first  denial  and  the  final  compact,  may  be  well  called 
the  grand  central  fact  of  the  poem ;  it  was,  however, 
the  grand  obstacle  to  the  poet,  —  was  that  which  he 
had  to  wait  for  nearly  forty  years,  from  youth  to  the 
beginning  of  old  age.  What  was  his  own  development 
during  that  time  in  its  cardinal  points  ?  If  we  can 
bring  them  together  in  our  glance,  perhaps  we  may  be 
able  to  see  the  spiritual  history  of  the  genesis  afore- 
said, or  some  suggestion  thereof  Out  of  what  and 
into  what  did  the  poet  have  to  pass,  before  he  could 
write  that  wonderful  evolution  of  the  modern  Devil  ? 
As  early  as  1769,  possibly  earlier,  he  had  in  him  the 
Denial  of  Faust  seen  in  the  first  soliloquy;  then  or 
not  long  afterward  he  had  the  full-formed  Mephisto 
in  activity  with  the  Student  and  with  Margaret ;  what 

22 


338  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

connection  between  the  Denial  and  the  Devil  ?  The 
young  poet  feels  that  the  one  is  the  source  of  the 
other,  that  the  one  must  be  generated  out  of  the  other ; 
but  he  possessed  no  literary  form  adequate  for  such  a 
task,  nor  could  he  get  it  from  any  quarter,  — with  good 
reason,  for  the  literature  of  the  world  as  yet  contained 
no  such  literary  form.  Genetic  liints  do  indeed  occur 
in  Shakespeare,  even  in  old  Homer;  but  they  are 
sudden  flashes,  prophecies  of  the  coming  form,  by  no 
means  developed  into  an  explicit  procedure.  Goethe 
then  not  merely  must  liave  the  new  thought,  but  must 
find  the  new  form ;  he  has  to  live  it  into  being  along 
with  his  life.  This  creation  of  a  new  literary  form  is 
what  makes  "  Faust  "  an  original  poem,  and  its  appear- 
ance an  epoch  in  the  world's  literature. 

Such  was  the  difficulty  which  rose  up  against  the 
continuation  of  Faust ;  yet  the  same  difficulty  lies  in 
the  entire  period  of  Goethe's  early  poetic  activity, 
that  period  usually  called  his  Titanism.  He  began 
a  "  Prometheus,"  the  world's  accepted  type  of  Titanic 
struggle,  but  he  never  could  finish  it ;  he  ran  against 
the  obstacle  which  stopped  his  "  Faust."  Two  other 
works,  "Mahomet"  and  "The  Wandering  Jew,"  con- 
ceived in  the  same  spirit,  had  to  remain  fragments 
for  the  same  reason.  He  began  a  novel,  "  Wilhelm 
Meister";  but,  with  all  the  external  incitement  of 
friends,  he  could  not  bring  it  to  an  end,  because  the 
end  lay  not  in  him.  He  broke  with  his  Titanism, 
saw  that  it  would  bring  nothing  to  a  close  but  itself; 
still,  hke  the  huge  boulders  of  some  mighty  prinii- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  339 

tive  energy,  the  fragments  of  these  early  efforts  lie 
scattered  through  several  portions  of  his  works.  Th3 
fine  poem  called  "  Ilmenau  "  (1783)  indicates  the  tran- 
sition ;  it  shows  the  break  with  the  past,  with  the 
period  of  "Storm  and  Stress,"  and  also  hints  the 
unsettled  state  of  the  future. 

Still  the  poet  was  growing,  growing  into  this  very 
genetic  method.  He  had  begun  to  study  science  in 
his  way,  to  take  long  deep  glances  into  Nature,  the 
first  and  last  of  his  teachers.  He  discovered  the  inter- 
maxillary bone  in  man,  riot  by  scientific  induction  so 
much  as  by  poetic  intuition,  —  that  vision  which  be- 
holds, not  the  particular  thing  or  fact  in  isolation,  but 
the  total  creative  process,  of  which  this  is  but  a  link. 
The  glance  which  sees  in  the  particular  thing  or  fact 
the  entire  cycle  of  Nature  —  sees  in  the  single  bone 
the  whole  skeleton  of  the  one  animal  and  of  all  ani- 
mals—  is  Goethe's  glance,  penetrating  the  genetic 
procedure  of  the  physical  world,  and  hinting  from 
afar  a  kindred  literary  procedure. 

But  this  last  stage  has  not  yet  arrived,  —  indeed, 
cannot  yet  arrive ;  he  makes  the  transition  into  Art 
by  a  new  mighty  experience.  This  is  the  journey  to 
Italy,  the  most  important  epoch  of  his  life,  falling 
almost  midway  between  his  birth  and  death,  when 
he  was  old  enough  to  understand  fully  the  lesson 
of  the  past  world,  young  enough  still  to  be  moulded 
by  that  lesson.  At  once  the  fermentation  began  to 
settle,  the  soul  to  purify  itself,  and  he  reached  a  new 
harmonious  insight  into  the  world-order,  and  into  the 


340  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

expression  thereof;  he  became  a  new  man,  looking 
upon  a  new  world ;  all  that  had  been  impeded  and 
was  incomplete  in  his  life  and  works  now  began  to 
move  toward  freedom  and  completeness.  The  influ- 
ence was  a  new  birth  of  the  whole  man  :  Nature, 
Life,  Art,  Poetry,  all  felt  the  fresh  creative  breath  of 
that  Italian  spring. 

First,  the  vegetable  world  revealed  itself  to  him  in 
Italy,  he  says,  in  a  garden  at  Palermo,  where  he  fully 
saw  that  wonderful  metamorphosis  in  which  the  leaf 
generates  itself,  and  in  that  genetic  process  purifies 
itself  more  and  more  into  higher  forms,  till  at  last  it 
completes  itself  in  the  total  plant.  That  little  book, 
called  "  The  Metamorphosis  of  Plants,"  written  after 
his  return  from  Italy,  showing  all  the  stages  of  the 
genesis  of  the  plant  from  the  leaf,  is  still  Nature's 
grand  suggestion  of  the  genesis  of  Mephisto,  and  re- 
mains to  this  day  the  best  guide  to  a  true  insight 
into  the  genesis  of  "  Faust,"  —  the  book  itself  being 
a  poem,  a  genetic  drama  of  the  plant.  In  like  man- 
ner he  showed  the  metamorphosis  of  the  vertebral 
into  the  cranial  bones,  and  carried  the  genesis  of  forms 
through  the  animal  world.  A  great,  many-sided  ac- 
tivity he  unfolded,  yet  with  one  thought  at  bottom  ; 
that  thought  was  genesis,  which  became  his  conscious 
principle ;  he  saw  it  everywhere  in  Nature,  looked 
for  it  in  Art,  and  in  the  history  of  Art,  and  intended 
to  apply  it  universally  in  his  great  work  on  Man 
and  Nature,  of  which,  however,  but  a  few  outlines 
remain. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  341 

Already  in  Italy  this  spiritual  metamorphosis  be- 
gan to  pass  into  the  literary  works  which  he  took 
with  him  to  that  country.  "Iphigenie"  from  a  prose 
drama  was  transformed  into  an  ideal  example  of 
classic  beauty,  —  a  veritable  symbol  of  Goethe's  own 
transformation  under  Italian  skies.  "Tasso"  was 
also  transformed  and  rewritten  in  the  same  classic 
spirit  and  measure.  A  new  world  had  indeed  dawned 
upon  him  ;  or  it  was  rather  the  transfiguration  of  the 
old  world  into  a  new  existence. 

Of  necessity  he  began  to  employ  his  new  insight  in 
a  higher  realm,  that  of  spiritual  production,  of  which 
the  first  great  literary  fruit  after  his  return  was  the 
completion  of  "  Meister's  Apprenticeship."  We  have 
seen  how  that  work  lay  unfinished  before  the  Italian 
journey ;  no  completeness  was  possible  in  it  then,  as 
there  was  no  completeness  in  ihe  author.  But  now 
he  sees  the  way,  he  will  remodel  the  whole  work,  and 
bring  it  to  an  end ;  Meister  too  is  to  reveal  the  genetic 
hint,  and  carry  it  over  into  the  novel,  and  therewith 
into  the  spiritual  world,  out  of  Nature,  even  into  edu- 
cation. It  is,  indeed,  the  principle  of  human  life  and 
character ;  the  erring  man  is  to  be  seen  going  through 
his  process  of  self-purification,  of  self-correction  of 
errors,  the  grand  human  discipline  in  the  mastery  of 
fate.  "  In  every  endowment  lies  the  force  to  bring  it 
to  perfection,"  says  the  Abbd,  who  is  the  almost  in- 
visible Jupiter  Olympius,  hovering  over  this  truly 
modern  epic.  The  nature  of  Meister  unfolds  through 
manifold  errors  into  its  true  being  ;  in  him  we  watch 


342  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

the  genesis  of  a  liiimau  soul  out  of  its  primordial 
germ  into  reality. 

With  the  completion  of  the  apprenticeship  of  Meis- 
ter,  the  grand  obstacle  which  stopped  Goethe  so  many- 
years  was  broken  down ;  he  had  entered  the  para- 
dise of  supreme  poetic  creation.  The  great  literary 
deed  was  done,  yet  not  completely  done  ;  a  liter- 
ary expression  had  been  found  for  one  phase  of  the 
new  idea  applied  to  life ;  but  there  was  still  another 
phase,  stronger,  deeper,  more  universal.  In  Meister 
the  function  of  error  in  the  grand  human  discipline  is 
told,  turned  over  and  over,  and  emphasized  in  a  thou- 
sand varied  forms ;  but  now  error  is  to  deepen  into 
denial,  the  unconscious  mistake  is  to  become  conscious 
negation,  —  in  fine,  is  to  become  the  Devil.  There- 
with rises  the  new  task,  vaster,  more  desperate,  more 
soul-cleaving ;  a  gigantic  task,  which  the  poor  mortal 
may  well  shun,  —  to  call  up  and  put  into  body  tlie 
"  spirit  that  denies,"  the  modern  Destroyer.  The 
negation  of  Truth,  the  intensified  embodiment  of  all 
error,  wandering,  waywardness,  the  conscious  Denial 
burning  with  a  sulphurous  torch,  indeed,  the  very 
Devil,  is  now  to  unfold  before  our  eyes  into  a  reality, 
and  to  accompany  the  man  through  his  long  earthly 
career,  till  he  work  himself  free  of  his  diabolic  coun- 
terpart, purify  himself,  and  ascend  to  heaven. 

The  task  has  to  be  done  :  there  is  no  escape  of  the 
true  poet  from  his  call.  Scarcely  had  he  finished 
"  Meister,"  when  the  mightier  problem  seized  hold  of 
him,  the  final  ground  and  mystery  of  all  creation,  the 


HISTORY  OF  THE  FAUST  POEM.  343 

genesis  of  evil.  Yet  this  problem,  so  new,  was  never- 
theless his  oldest  poetic  task,  had  indeed  lurked  un- 
derneath all  his  activity  since  his  twentieth  year,  had 
sent  him  to  Nature  for  lessons,  had  driven  him  to  Italy 
for  expression  and  clarification,  had  made  him  write 
"  Meister  "  for  training ;  this  Paust  question  is  really 
the  spiritual,  substrate  of  Goethe's  entire  productivity, 
the  mother  soil  out  of  which  shoot  up  all  his  works 
and  his  life.  In  1797-98  the  Prologues  were  written, 
in  which  we  see  him  deep  in  his  work ;  and  we  catch, 
from  his  correspondence  with  Schiller,  faint  indica- 
tions that  the  embryonic  Mephisto  was  lustily  strug- 
fflin^T  within  him. 

But  it  is  not  a  matter  which  can  be  despatched  with 
a  few  rapid  pen-strokes.  Still  a  ten  years'  struggle, 
O  valiant  man  !  awaits  thee  ;  untold  birth-throes  will 
wrench  thy  being  till  thou  be  delivered  of  Satan,  who 
will  himself,  "  the  old  hell-lynx,"  be  made  to  sweat 
roundly  in  the  process  {ihr  haht  mich  weidlich  schwit- 
zen  machen).  Let  no  lack  of  man's  recognition  put 
down  the  God  who  now  commands  the  work ;  rouse 
thyself  anew ;  the  years  of  long  preparation  are  past ; 
the  hair  on  thy  temples  has  turned  gray  since  the  first 
early  conception  of  thy  task,  but  it  lives  in  thee  still ; 
thou  hast  travelled  all  the  realms  of  Nature,  Life,  Art, 
in  thy  toilsome  apprenticeship,  and  written  its  record ; 
but  now  it  is  done.  Thy  supreme  effort  must  be 
made,  thy  genius  is  invoking  thee  to  exorcise  the 
Devil  out  of  thy  "  Faust,"  and  out  of  thyself  into  the 
world,  and  by  thy  magic  speech  to  ban  him  into  writ, 


344  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

there  to  stay  forever.  Then  thou  art  free,  but  not  till 
more  than  eighty  years  have  passed  over  thy  head, 
and  the  last  line  he  set  down ;  then  thou  mayst  dis- 
miss thyself  from  thy  terrestrial  task,  and  say  to 
thine  Ariel,  "Now  to  the  elements." 


GOETHE'S   WOMEN.  345 


XII. 
.    GOETHE'S  WOMEN. 

By  Mrs.    JULIA  WARD  HOWE. 

The  topic  here  set  down  to  my  name  was  assigned 
me  months  ago,  and  appeared  at  the  time  one  most 
congenial  to  my  wishes.  Goethe's  women !  how 
charming  to  renew  my  acquaintance  with  them ! 
What  a  lovely  literary  pleasure  to  take  up  the 
magical  volumes,  and  to  go  again  through  the  va- 
ried narratives  in  which  they  play  their  part !  Vain 
thought !  I  had  my  Goethe-time  long  ago,  when  as 
a  girl  I  read  "  Faust,"  "  Gotz  von  Berlichingen,"  and 
others  of  the  plays,  and  when,  a  young  mother,  I 
quieted  a  baby  with  one  hand,  while  the  other  turned 
over  the  pages  of  "Wilhelm  Meister;"  and  so  my 
Goethe  Gallery  is  seen  through  a  long  vista  of  years. 
T,  too,  who  once  adored  the  Teuton  rule,  do  so  no 
longer.  Heaven  forbid  that  my  grandchildren  should 
be  fed  upon  the  tonic  of  "  blood  and  iron  "  !  Give 
me  American  rule,  American  training,  with  its  lapses 
even  and  its  faults.  For,  though  Germany  did  won- 
derfully take  the  lead  in  critical  thought  during  the 
first  half  of  this  century,  when  the  moment  came  for 


346  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

liberal  action,  she  shrank  away,  and  lost  the  world's 
leadership,  and  will  never  regain  it.  And  how  did 
her  Nemesis,  Bismarck,  obtain  the  mastery  over  her 
daring  thought  and  unrepentant  speculation  ?  Let 
me  grimly  parody,  in  reply,  a  line  of  Kobert  Brown- 


ing 


"Just  for  a  handful  of  silver  he  had  us  ; 
Just  for  a  ribbon  to  stick  on  our  coat." 


Having  said  thus  much,  and  refusing  to  bow  to  a 
cocked  hat,  even  if  worn  by  a  German  Prince  and  set 
up  by  a  German  Emperor,  I  will  look  back  at  the 
social  and  literary  glories  which  once  illuminated 
two  hemispheres  from  the  narrow  heaven  of  a  small 
German  principality. 

Coming,  at  so  late  a  date,  into  this  Goethe  sym- 
posium, I  must  fear  more  than  ever  to  touch  upon 
ground  already  occupied  by  those  who  have  preceded 
me.  One  who  speaks  of  Goethe's  Women  must 
needs  speak  of  the  man  Goethe,  of  "  Faust,"  of  "  Wil- 
helm  Meister,"  and  of  much  besides.  And  I  avail 
myself  of  the  title  of  the  theme  given  me  to  speak, 
not  only  of  the  women  whom  Goethe  has  brought 
into  the  world  of  literature,  but  also  of  those  who 
were  known  and  prized  by  him.  From  the  living 
gallery  of  his  friends  to  the  marble  gallery  of  his 
fancies,  we  may  step  in  true  progress.  Or  might  I 
rather  say,  that  we  may  find  the  beautiful  forms 
of  his  imagination  to  be  as  like  to  those  cherished 
in  his  affections,  as  the  trees  on  the  bank  are  to  the 
trees  in  the  river,  —  only  that,  like  the  clear  stream, 


GOETHE'S   WOMEN.  347 

the  master's  mind  adds  to  their  beauties  a  glory  of 
its  own  ? 

The  real  women  in  the  first  place,  and  the  Mother 
first  of  all,  —  characterized  by  that  substantial  value 
which  belongs  to  a  class  that  neither  cringes  nor 
aspires.  We  must  thank  the  Germans  for  many 
words ;  and.  may  go  into  their  language  to  help  our 
own,  just  as  a  child  may  go  into  its  grandmother's 
store-closet  to  commit  a  theft  which  his  mother 
would  not  leave  unpunished.  The  word  I  have  in 
mind  at  this  time  is  hiirgcrlich,  which,  taken  strictly, 
corresponds  to  bourgeois  in  French,  and  to  "upper- 
middle-class"  in  English.  The  German  term,  how- 
ever, seems  to  make  a  stand  for  itself.  The  French 
bourgeois  has  a  little  sarcastic  tang,  which  Moliere 
gave  it.  "  Upper-middle-class  "  is  rather  hopelessly 
suggestive  of  caste  and  confusion.  But  hilrgerlich, 
hxxr^QTlike,  brings  to  our  mind  those  substantial 
medieevals  who  were  rich  enough  to  afford  a  velvet 
doublet  and  a  gold  chain,  —  who  could  lend  the 
Court  money,  but  who  would  not  borrow  manners 
from  it.  So  Goethe's  mother  was  hurgcrliche,  al- 
though beloved  of  princes,  not  only  for  her  son's, 
but  for  her  own  sake ;  with  great  manners  and  her 
gold  snuff-box  for  great  days,  but  with  a  simple  and 
genuine  love  of  life,  its  real  duties  and  real  values. 
How  naive  and  kindly  is  her  anxiety  that  the  cakes 
to  be  served  at  her  funeral  shall  be  rich  and  good 
enough  for  the  occasion  !  She  does  not  appreciate 
the  Frau  von  Stael,  and  Goethe  did  not  either.      Yet 


348  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

she  is  a  woman  poetical  in  sentiment  and  rich  in 
feeling. 

The  sister,  Cornelia,  the  dear  companion  of  Goethe's 
youth,  the  confidante  of  his  first  literary  schemes  and 
aspirations,  was  a  young  girl  whose  plainness  of  per- 
son made  her  self-distrustful,  but  whose  character, 
to  those  capable  of  divining  it,  revealed  an  inner 
beauty  to  which  the  outer  charm  would  have  seemed 
superfivious. 

The  lady-loves,  so  numerous,  —  often  succeeding 
each  other  without  an  interval  between  the  old 
love  and  the  new,  —  how  worthy  do  they  for  the 
most  part  appear  in  what  is  known  of  them !  Each 
has  her  individual  charm.  The  first,  Frederika 
Brion,  is  a  blooming  rustic.  The  second,  Lotte,  is 
a  girl  in  higher  position,  gay  and  sedate  by  turns, 
the  betrothed  of  Goethe's  friend,  who  bitterly  resents 
the  portraiture  of  both  given  to  the  world  in  "  Wer- 
ther."  The  third,  fourth,  and  fifth,  Anna,  SibyUa, 
and  Maximiliane,  are  less  known  to  us.  The  sixth, 
Lili,  is  a  city  belle,  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  banker, 
and  something  of  a  coquette.  She  was  the  inspirer 
of  some  of  the  poet's  best-known  lyrics,  such  as, 

"  Heart,  my  heart,  what  is  this  feeling 
That  doth  weigh  on  me  so  sore  ? " 

Of  her  inspiring,  too,  was  the  poem  entitled  "Lili's 
Menagerie,"  in  which,  says  Lewes,  "  he  expresses  his 
surly  disgust  at  the  familiar  faces  which  surround 
her,"  —  the  Bear  of  the  menagerie  being  a  portrait  of 


t.  LlB/y^^p. 


or    THE 


((  IINIVERBITY  )l 
GOETHE'S  ^^^fe^C^LlFORNlA.p 

himself.  Goethe  follows  her  about  to  scenes  of  un- 
congeuial  gayety,  in  braided  coat,  gazing  at  her  "amid 
the  glare  of  chandeliers."  In  his  conversations  with 
Eckermann,  he  calls  her  his  first,  last,  and  only  love, 
all  others  in  comparison  deserving  only  to  be  classed 
as  inclinations.  When  he  says  of  this  affection,  "  It 
has  influenced  my  style,"  he  pays  her  the  utmost 
tribute  that  a  literary  man  can  offer  to  a  woman. 
He  loves,  but  marries  not.  The  first  attractions  find 
him  precocious  in  feeling,  and  mature  enough  in 
judgment  to  distrust  himself  It  costs  him  bitter 
tears  to  forsake  his  sweethearts.  We  can  imagine  that 
the  tears  shed  by  them  must  have  been  more  bitter, 
and  cannot  put  out  of  sight  the  disadvantage  suffered 
by  these  young  girls,  when,  after  every  appearance  of 
serious  intention,  the  brilliant  youth  flits  from  them, 
and  leaves  them  in  (to  say  the  least)  awkward  isola- 
tion. The  fact  that  he  did  so  leave  them  reminds 
me  of  a  humorous  device  in  Ofienbach's  "  Orphee  aux 
Enfers."  Jupiter,  wishing  to  make  love  to  Pluto's 
fair  bride,  descends  in  the  form  of  a  monstrous  but- 
terfly, and  presently  hands  forward  his  card,  saying, 
"Je  suis  le  Baron  de  Jupiter."  The  great  Goethe, 
on  the  contrary,  comes  like  a  lord  and  departs  like  a 
butterfly. 

In  the  judgments  which  this  unedifying  course  has 
drawn  upon  him,  Goethe  is  often  blamed  as  though 
he  had  been  throughout  a  free  and  voluntary  agent. 
This  is  not  a  fair  reading  of  the  matter.  Goethe  in 
his  youth  was  subject  to  all  the  complications  which 


350  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

result  from  the  conflict  between  temperament  and 
those  "  circumstances  over  which  we  have  no  control," 
that  would  seem  to  be  a  convenient  invention  of 
modern  times.  The  wishes  of  his  parents  —  strong 
and  determined  people  —  would  naturally  be  present 
to  his  mind  in  anything  of  so  much  moment  as  a 
matrimonial  alliance.  From  Frederika  he  seems  to 
have  been  parted  by  a  sense  of  the  unfitness  of  the 
relation,  —  responding  to  the  remonstrances  of  his 
friend  Merck,  With  Lili  he  exchanged  the  kiss  of 
betrothal,  and  soon  after,  at  the  instance  especially 
of  his  sister,  thought  better  of  it,  and  never  saw  her 
more  until  the  heads  of  both  were  gray.  But  now 
he  goes  to  Court,  and  beholds  the  great  ladies  of  the 
day.  One  of  these,  the  Frau  von  Stein,  becomes  his 
Muse,  and  for  ten  years  holds  him  in  her  vassalage. 
The  relation  between  them,  though  an  intimate  one, 
seems  to  have  escaped  scandal ;  Frau  von  Stein  hav- 
ing held  a  position  of  much  respect  in  the  society  of 
the  day,  and  having  no  doubt  preserved  through  all 
excitements  the  strictest  sense  of  the  convenances, 
and  of  the  penalty  of  their  violation.  The  Frau  von 
Stein  is  known  to  have  been  intellectual  in  her 
tastes  and  elegant  in  her  accomplishments.  For 
the  length  of  time  already  mentioned  she  remained 
a  guiding  luminary  in  Goethe's  heaven,  the  con- 
fidante of  his  thoughts,  his  sentiments,  and  his 
literary   projects. 

In  his  fortieth  year,  he  met  the  woman  who  was 
destined  to  be  the  mother  of  his  only  child,  and  the 


GOETHE'S   WOMEN.  351 

companion  of  his  later  years.  This  was  Christian  e 
Vulpius,  a  woman  of  poor  descent,  inheriting  from  an 
unworthy  father  only  the  curse  of  a  morbid  appetite 
for  intoxicating  liquors.  Lewes,  in  his  Life  of  Goethe, 
finds  much  to  say  in  explanation  of  a  course  of  con- 
duct which  cost  the  great  Master  much  of  his  social 
prestige,  and  robbed  him  forever  of  the  friendship 
of  Frau  von  Stein.  "Christiane  had,"  says  Lewes, 
"quick  mother-wit,  a  lively  spirit,  a  loving  heart, 
and  great  aptitude  for  domestic  duties."  Madame 
Schopenhauer  describes  her  as  endowed  with  "golden 
brown  locks,  laughing  eyes,  kiss-provoking  lips,  a 
small  and  gracefully  rounded  figure,"  and  likens  her 
in  appearance  to  a  youthful  Bacchus.  The  "  Ro- 
man Elegies "  record  Goethe's  feeling  for  her,  while 
the  fact  that  he  partly  wrote  for  her  his  invaluable 
"  Metamorphoses  of  Plants  "  shows  her  to  have  been 
possessed  of  an  education  sufficient  to  enable  her 
to  share  some  of  his  studies.  The  liaison,  whicli 
must  have  begun  soon  after  their  first  acquaint- 
ance, in  1788,  led,  eighteen  years  later,  to  a  mar- 
riage, at  which  their  son,  already  eighteen  years 
of  age,  was  present.  To  this  son,  born  in  1789, 
the  Duke  August  had  stood  as  godfather,  —  an  act 
which  shows  that,  although  disapproved,  the  con- 
nection with  Christiane  was  not  ruinous  to  Goethe's 
court  favor. 

Bettine  von  Arnim  we  may  mention  as  a  gracious 
episode  of  Goethe's  later  life, — an  evening  star  on  the 
edge  of  his  sunset  glory.     Like  the  evening  star,  she 


352  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

shows  herself,  and  presently  "  fades  in  the  light  that 
she  loves."  Of  great  romantic  interest  in  the  social 
history  of  the  time,  Bettine  does  not  much  avail  us 
in  the  present  connection,  for  it  does  not  appear  that 
she  exerted  any  influence  over  Goethe's  literary  life. 
One  other  woman  we  may  name,  Friiulein  von  Le- 
vezow,  whose  beauty,  spiritual  or  personal,  smote  the 
ancient  heart  even  in  extreme  old  age,  and,  provok- 
ing to  no  unseemly  act  of  folly,  called  forth  the 
"Elegie  aus  Marienhad." 

I  liave  called  to  mind  very  briefly  some  of  the 
women  who  are  known  to  have  had  an  influence 
upon  Goethe's  life,  because  they  are  sure  to  have 
had  some  share  in  the  parentage  of  that  ideal 
family  from  which  his  fame  in  great  measure  de- 
rives. I  am  not  able,  however,  to  trace  out  the 
traits  and  features  which  might  make  this  relation- 
ship evident.  His  biographers  have  already  done 
this,  —  none  better,  perhaps,  than  Lewes. 

If  we  compare  Goethe's  method  with  those  most 
in  favor  with  us  to-day,  we  shall  be  impressed  above 
all  with  its  generosity.  In  the  line  of  this  com- 
parison, I  first  think  of  the  great  English  masters, 
Dickens  and  Thackeray.  From  them  my  mind  turns 
to  the  works  of  two  of  my  own  countrymen,  Messrs. 
Howells  and  James.  All  of  these  writers  have  sat- 
irized women.  In  all  of  them,  to  my  mind,  though 
not  in  all  to  the  same  extent,  the  points  remarked 
upon  are  petty,  and  the  inferred  damage  to  character, 
to  say  the  least,  disproportionate.     Literary  women 


GOETHE'S   WOMEN.  353 

sometimes  show  the  same,  or  even  a  greater,  unchar- 
ity  toward  their  own  sex.  An  especial  example  of 
this  I  find  in  the  volume  called  "  Modern  Women," 
of  which  the  authorship  is  attributed  to  a  lady  well 
known  in  both  hemispheres  as  a  writer  of  fiction. 
Shall  we  say  that  these  are  truths  which  wound  in 
the  telling,  but  which  should  nevertheless  be  told  ? 
Methinks  it  is  the  low  interpretation  of  character 
and  of  life  that  wounds.  Good  surgery  works  for 
mitigation,  not  for  mutilation.  Cynical  writers  take 
from  us  our  left  arm  of  faith  and  our  ri^ht  arm 
of  courage.  They  take  from  us  the  swift  feet  of 
sympathy,  which  would  serve  humanity,  were  not 
humanity  represented  as  not  worth  serving  nor 
caring  for. 

Goethe  has  shown  us  in  his  writings  some  very 
poorly  behaved  women,  and  has  shown  them  without 
a  word  of  reprobation.  Marianne  and  Philine,  in 
"  Wilhelm  Meister,"  are  of  this  class,  —  characters 
which  no  one  would  dare  to  present  in  English 
literature  so  baldly  as  Goethe  has  presented  them  iu 
the  phraseology  of  his  mother  tongue.  Martha,  in 
"  Faust,"  is  vile,  and  Gretchen  trebly  criminal.  Where 
is  generosity  shown  in  these  very  literal  renderings 
of  women  whose  life  and  standard  are  low  ?  I  find 
that  in  these,  as  in  his  higher  creations,  Goethe  does 
not  lose  sight  of  the  ideal  value  of  human  life  and 
character.  Philine  is  redeemed  through  maternity. 
We  see  her  at  last  presented  to  a  noble  lady,  to 
whom  she  avows  the  commonplace  level  of  her  iutel- 

23 


354  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

lectual  aspirations,  but  says,  on  the  other  hand,  "  I 
love  my  husband  and  my  children,"  and  so  passes 
unreproved.  Marianne  is  a  sketch  left  much  in 
shadow;  yet  she  wins  our  human  sympathy  when 
we  dimly  see  her  dying  of  grief  for  a  lover  whom 
she  deserved  to  lose,  but  whose  loss  left  her  incon- 
solable. 

But  all  these  melancholy  pictures  fade  before  the 
piteous  pathos  of  Gretchen,  —  Gretchen,  the  simple 
peasant  maiden,  who  knows  no  harm,  and  means  no 
harm  to  any  one.  On  her  way  from  church,  to  which 
she  went  "  full  of  innocence,"  the  Devil  sets  his  snare 
for  her.  The  handsome  gallant,  urged  forward  by  the 
fiend,  touches  her  imagination.  "  Wer  mag  der  Herr 
seyn  ? "  A  great  gentleman  to  her,  —  ay,  and  in  him- 
self a  deeply  philosophic  man,  with  an  exquisite 
sense  even  of  the  beauty  of  the  innocence  against 
which  he  sins.  Goethe  does  not  spare  one  horror 
from  the  tale  of  what  befalls  her.  The  low,  stupid 
misery  in  which  she  cowers  in  the  straw,  her  dim 
reason  presenting  the  past  to  her  in  an  intangible 
shape,  —  nothing  real  to  her  but  her  helpless  lone- 
liness, her  forsaken  condition,  and  the  hangman  and 
gallows  waiting  for  her.  This  agonizing  story  is 
portrayed  with  the  greatest  mastership.  The  guile- 
less soul  of  the  girl  who  relates  to  Faust  how  she 
brought  up  her  baby  sister,  how  the  little  cradle 
stood  ever  by  her  bed,  how  many  a  weary  hour 
the  little  nursling  cost  her : 

"  Doch  schmeckt  dafiir  das  Essen,  sclimeckt  die  Kuh." 


I 


GOETUES   WOMEN.  355 

How  touching  her  catechism  of  Heinrich,  as  Faust 
has  taught  her  to  call  him  ! 

Gretciien. 

Now  say  how  does  it  stand  with  thy  religion  ? 
Thou  art  indeed  a  heartily  good  man, 
Only  of  that,  I  fear  me,  thou  art  careless. 

Faust. 

Let  that  alone,  my  child  ;  thou  know'st  I  love  thee, 
And  for  my  loves  will  give  my  life  and  blood,  - 
Would  steal  from  none  his  altar  and  his  creed. 

Gretciien. 
That 's  not  the  right  thing  yet,  one  must  believe. 

Faust. 
Must  one  ? 

Gretchen. 

Thou  honorest  not  the  holy  sacrament. 
Dost  thou  believe  in  God  ? 

Faust. 

Sweet,  who  dares  say, 
"  I  believe  in  God  "  ?    Ask  thou  the  priest,  the  sage, 
"^  Their  answer  seems  to  mock  the  questioner. 

And  the  tragedy  of  her  swoon  in  the  cathedral,  and 
of  the  bitter  thoughts  which  precede  it:  — 

"How  different,  Gretchen,  was  't  with  thee 
When  blameless  thou  this  altar  didst  approach, 
From  the  clasped  missal  lisping  prayers, 
Half  childish  play,  half  God  in  thy  young  heart  ! 
How  swims  thy  head  !  what  misdeeds  in  thy  thought ! " 

In  nothing  has  Goethe  shown  more  power  than  in 
this  unique  portraiture.     A  peasant  girl,  as  he  must 


356  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

have  known  them,  led  away,  destroyed,  mined,  as  he 
must  have  seen  them,  alas  !  too  often, —  the  moral  of 
this  story  needs  no  pointing.  Even  Hood's  "Think 
of  it,  dissolute  man,"  would  be  an  impertinence.  To 
womankind  it  almost  seems  to  say  :  "  If  God  so  clothe 
with  womanhood  the  very  grass  of  the  field,  what 
should  you  women  be  who  grow  up  in  honor,  safety, 
and  knowledge  ? " 

But  why  should  we  linger  with  this  poor  child 
in  her  dismal  prison,  when  we  can  climb  with  the 
master  to  such  heights  of  noble  imagination  ?  Let  us 
admire,  first  of  all,  the  breadth  of  view  which  includes 
so  simple  and  forlorn  a  creature,  and  her  very  oppo- 
site, the  woman  who  sits  in  her  bower  to  trace 
out  the  silver  embroidery  of  the  heavens,  Macaria 
the  blessed  !  We  may  say  that  this  revelation  did 
not  come  to  the  great  master  all  at  once.  Already 
in  "  Gotz,"  his  earliest  work,  the  later  performance 
is  foreshadowed.  Adellieid,  the  beautiful,  conupt 
woman,  Elizabeth,  the  strong  and  simple  one,  are 
drawn  with  mastery,  albeit  they  are  only  touched  in. 
But  the  Goethe  series  would  properly  begin  with 
Charlotte,  a  conventional  type,  if  a  charming  one. 
She  is  hilrgerliclie,  hourgeoise,  of  that  sort  which  is  as 
good  as  anything.  No  trace  in  her  of  the  defrauded 
duchess,  of  the  woman  who  condescends  to  live  her 
life,  holding  her  merits  and  pretensions  far  above  her 
sphere.  She  takes  her  fate  as  she  finds  it,  is  con- 
scientious in  the  cutting  of  bread  and  butter,  intends 
to  make  a  good  wife    to  lier  prosaic  husband,  and, 


GOETHE'S    WOMEN.  '      357 

though  unavoidably  touched  by  Werther's  devotion  to 
her,  and  for  a  moment  stirred  by  it  from  her  mental 
equilibrium,  is  sure  to  regain  her  peace  of  mind,  and 
to  end  her  days  worthily  and  happily,  as  is  best.  In 
George  Sand's  handling,  the  denouement  might  have 
been  far  different.  "  Werther,"  like  Eousseau's  "  He- 
loise,"  gives  one  cause  to  reflect  upon  the  changes 
which  make  the  great  romance  of  one  period  appear 
tame  and  dull  in  another. 

In  Goethe's  greatest  drama,  "Faust,"  and  in  his 
greatest  romance,  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  the  artist  cuts 
deep  down  into  the  quick  of  simple,  natural  passion, 
always  with  a  high  handling  and  intent.  He  gives 
us,  too,  the  conventional  glimpses  of  character  which 
society  affords,  —  the  actress,  who  vainly  loves  Wil- 
helm's  caustic  friend,' Jarno ;  the  lady  sketched  in 
as  stopping  at  the  inn,  and  reaching  home  late  on  her 
birthday ;  the  little  family  celebration  of  it,  spoiled 
by  the  delay,  but  still  more  by  the  jealous  anger 
which  steals  her  soul  away  ;  her  faithless  lover  being 
present  to  her  mind,  while  her  unloved  husband 
moves  before  her  eyes,  scarcely  noticed.  But  before 
we  pass  so  far,  Mignou  stays  our  way,  pathetic,  like 
Gretchen,  an  estray,  orphaned  by  the  unspeakable 
crime  of  her  parents,  but  with  the  instincts  of  a 
higher  race,  aspiring  heavenward  in  her  loneliness 
and  desolation,  her  melancholy  a  sweet,  angelic  mi- 
nor, that  ends  with  a  rising  cadence.  The  song, 
"  Kennst  du  das  Land  ? "  is  like  some  magical  crys- 
tal ball,  held  in  the  hand,  but  in   which  one  sees 


358  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

visions  of  things  far  distant.  Mignon  gives  us  all 
Italy  in  that  one  beautiful  crystallization,  —  the 
blooming  thickets,  the  gleaming  fruit,  the  soft  air, 
the  mountain  passes,  the  ancestral  halls  rich  in 
sculptures.  Who  can  show  us  so  much  in  so  little  ? 
Only  a  magician,  —  and  he  puts  his  wonder-ball  in 
the  hand  of  a  child. 

"  Die  Schone  Seele,"  the  fair  soul,  is  a  Protestant 
saint  of  a  type  not  unfamiliar  in  Goethe's  time,  —  not 
often  seen  nor  much  favored  in  our  own  day.  The 
absorbing  power  of  religious  enthusiasm,  divorcing 
youth  and  beauty  from  the  gay  and  busy  world, 
and  turning  the  sweet,  pure  eyes  all  to  the  contem- 
plation of  tilings  transcending  human  sense,  —  this 
portraiture  is  a  very  strong  and  perfect  one.  But 
religion  in  our  day  is  not  interpreted  after  this  as- 
cetic fashion.  Nature  and  she  embrace  with  one 
hand,  and  aspire  with  the  other.  I  need  not  here 
enlarge  upon  this  fortunate  change.  The  reaction 
from  mediaeval  forms  of  devotion  is  too  well  known 
to  need  illustration  at  my  hand.  Let  us,  however, 
think  of  this,  —  that  Goethe  thought  this  now  ob- 
solete type  worth  preserving  in  his  glorious  work. 
And  let  us  question  whether  we  cannot  have  the 
singleness  of  heart,  the  unquestioning  conscience,  of 
his  Schone  Seele,  without  that  technical  sundering 
from  social  ties  and  interests  which  she  received  as 
the  commandment  of  Heaven,  but  against  which  we  of 
to-day  must  rebel.  Piety  of  this  sort  is  to-day  called 
Pietism,  and  stands  upon  a  level  with  other  isms. 


GOETHE'S   WOMEN.  359 

Casting  about  in  my  mind  for  a  schone  Seele  of  our 
own  time,  I  see  before  me  the  thoughtful  eyes  and 
spirit-pure  face  of  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps^  Single 
and  devout  is  she,  and  somewhat  withdrawn  from 
the  world,  and  yet  such  a  Nature-friend  that  the 
heaven  which  she  loves  to  picture  is  full  of  human 
delights,  translated  out  of  excess,  out  of  selfishness, 
out  of  danger.  In  it  the  good  are  holy,  harmless, 
and  heavenly  forever,  but  are  human  withal,  as 
Christ  was  human. 

Macaria,  darling  of  the  gods,  to  whom  are  whis- 
pered the  secrets  of  the  universe,  sees  in  the  starry 
heavens  the  path  and  power  of  each  distant  lumi- 
nary, and  builds  sublimely  in  her  own  brain  the  plan 
of  the  Master  Architect  through  whom  it  all  came 
to  be.     Having  had  acquaintance  once  with  an  emi- 
nent astronomer,  and  knowing,  as  every  one  knows, 
that  the  study  of  astronomy  involves  much  laborious 
calculation,  as  well  as  the  keenest   observation,   I 
asked  him  what  Goethe  could  have  meant  by  drawing 
the  portrait  of  a  woman  who  knew  all  these  wonders 
by  intuition.     He  replied,  "  There  is  no  understand- 
ing what  a  man  like  Goethe  meant  by  much  that  he 
wrote,  and  this  with  the  rest."    But  I  find  something 
intelligible  even  in  this  mystic  description.    Goethe's 
feeling  of  the  intuitive  power  of  women  was  a  very 
strong  one.    He  may  have  added  to  it  a  moment's  tri- 
fling with  the  somnambulic  phenomena  which  Swe- 
denborg  and  other  mystics  had  already  introduced  to 
the  world.     The  intuitive  power  of  woman  is  indeed 


360  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

precious  to  society ;  and  one  of  the  great  fears  which 
accompany  the  advance  of  the  sex  in  rationalistic 
and  purely  intellectual  discipline,  is  the  dread  lest 
in  the  drill  of  their  new  acquisitions  they  should 
lose  this  distinctive  and  invaluable  trait.  I  need 
not  here  take  up  this  matter  either,  but  I  will  say, 
as  I  said  before,  "  Goethe  thought  this  work  suggest- 
ive."    We  therefore  may  ponder  upon  it. 

Two  poems  of  Goethe's,  "  Der  Gott  und  die  Baja- 
din,"  and  "  Die  Braut  von  Corinth,"  breathe  the  ful- 
ness of  youthful  passion,  unrestrained  by  the  critical 
after-thought  which  makes  the  great  poet  appear 
even  greater  in  the  anatomy  of  human  feeling  than 
in  its  expression.  In  both  of  these  poems  we  feel 
the  reaction  against  the  pietistic  and  exclusive  ethic 
which  must  often  have  appeared  to  Goethe  in  the 
light  of  a  Pharisaic  tyranny  not  to  be  endured. 

Mahadoh,  lord  of  earth,  visits  the  Dancing-girl, 
who  greets  him  as  a  stranger  with  smiling  hospi- 
tality.    Of  the  god  the  poet  says : 

"If  he  judge  or  if  he  share, 
Manlike  he  with  man  must  fare." 

And  so  the  divine  visitor  sees  beneath  the  painted 
cheek  a  gentle  nature,  and  smiles  to  find, 

'•  In  deepest  perdition,  a  womanly  heart." 

He  becomes  her  guest,  her  master,  her  spouse. 
Wakina:  from  her  dream  of  wedded  bliss,  she  finds 
him  dead.  Those  who  bear  him  to  his  funeral  pyre 
deny  her  the  widow's  precious  right,  to  be  burned 


GOETHE'S   WOMEN.  861 

with  lier  husband ;  but  she,  leaping  into  the  flames, 
is  caught  in  his  embrace,  and  carried  to  the  region 
of  the  Immortals.  This  story  illustrates  the  passive 
religion  of  the  Hindoo  woman. 

In  early  Christendom,  a  youth  betrothed  to  a 
young  girl  in  Corinth  journeys  thither  from  his  dis- 
tant home  and  claims  the  hospitality  of  the  house  to 
which  he  stands  thus  related.  Here,  in  the  deep  of 
night,  he  is  visited  by  a  vampire,  the  ghost  of  his  be- 
trothed, who  has  met  death  in  a  convent  to  which  her 
mother's  vows  had  consigned  her  on  recovery  from  a 
dangerous  illness.  Surprised  by  the  mother,  the  fatal, 
horrible  visitor  touches  us  by  this  piteous  appeal : 

"  Hearken,  mother,  now  my  latest  prayer. 
And  a  sexton  send  who  shall  be  my  friend, 
And  my  narrow,  wretched  home  unclose. 
Bring  in  flames  the  loving  to  repose  ! 

When  the  spark  shall  show, 

When  the  ashes  glow, 
To  the  old-time  deities  we  '11  go." 

"The  Erl  King"  is  the  only  poem  of  Goethe's 
which  offers  itself  to  my  mind  as  having  the  same 
terrific  suggestion  and  horror  as  are  found  in  this 
composition.  Its  horror,  however,  is  mystical  and 
pathetic,  condensed  from  the  shadows  and  chills  of 
evening  deepening  into  night,  while  the  Bride  is  seen 
by  flashes  of  vivid  lightning  whose  accompanying 
thunder  shakes,  with  the  primeval  forces  of  ISTature, 
the  foundations  of  the  new,  aspiring  Faith. 

The  climax  of  Goethe's  guneology  —  you  will  allow 
me  this  word  —  is  reached  in  the  concluding  sentence 


362  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

of  "Faust," — "Das  Ewig-AVeibliche  zieht  uns  hinan/' 
"  The  Eternal  Womanly  attracts  us,  draws  us  on." 
The  gravity  of  the  nominative  here  seems  to  ask  a 
grave  interpretation  of  the  verb.  Anziehen  literally 
means  "  to  draw  on,"  metaphorically  means  "  to 
attract."  Let  us  give  it  the  weight  of  both  mean- 
ings, and  interpret  it  as  expressing  the  attraction 
which  indeed  draws  or  leads  us  on.  This  wonderful 
phrase  has  been  often  quoted,  and  much  dwelt  upon. 
As  the  last  word  of  a  mighty  life-drama,  —  a  drama 
whose  intense  interest  holds  the  world  wherever  pre- 
sented to-day,  —  we  are  glad  to  find  in  it  a  deep 
meaning.  After  the  chorus  of  the  angels,  and  the 
visitation  of  the  Demon,  after  daring  speculation  and 
more  daring  sin,  after  the  vanity  of  imagination,  after 
the  substantiality  of  possession,  comes  the  final  voice, 
"  Das  Ewig-Weibliche." 

It  might  seem  strange  if  people  of  our  dimensions 
should  feel  it  incumbent  upon  them  to  apologize  for 
anything  that  a  mighty  man  like  Goethe  did  or  said. 
Still  is  it  one  of  the  meekeuing  reflections  belonging 
to  our  race,  that  the  greatest  of  men  (could  we  give 
one  that  rank)  cannot  be  rightly  judged  without  the 
tenderness  of  human  charity,  Goethe's  unjustifiable 
treatment  of  his  early  loves,  his  unjustifiable  relation 
with  the  mother  of  his  boy,  —  these  are  matters  that 
call  for  charitable  judgment.  And  I  find  the  world 
more  bound  to  charity  to-day  than  heretofore,  on 
account  of  the  improved  methods  of  analysis  which 
belong  to  our  later  thought  and  culture.     Phrenology 


GOETHE'^    WOMEN.  363 

and  the  study  of  heredity  enable  the  analyst  of 
human  nature  in  our  time  to  trace  the  effects  of 
leading  characteristics  more  fully  and  subtly  than 
was  possible  in  earlier  times,  in  which  divisions  were 
more  crude  and  absolute. 

The  power  of  Goethe's  imagination  in  matters  per- 
sonal to  himself  is  shown  in  the  circumstance  that 
the  mere  anticipation  of  a  first  meeting  with  Frau 
von  Stein  cost  him  three  sleepless  nights.  What  im- 
possible perfections  he  expected  to  find  in  her,  we 
can  hardly  conjecture,  —  prosaic  creatures  that  we 
are,  Avho  would  not  lie  awake  one  night  for  any  pre- 
sentation that  can  be  imagined !  This  vivid  ima- 
gination, we  must  think,  would  have  been  apt  to 
lend  its  brilliant  coloring  to  the  encounters  of  a  first 
acquaintance.  Its  ecstasy,  though  supreme,  would 
necessarily  be  short-lived.  Onward,  onward,  would 
this  flying  steed  bear  its  rider,  who  is  not  always  its 
master.  So  the  enchantment  of  one  personage  would 
vanish  with  the  enchantment  of  the  surrounding 
scene.  The  scene,  the  personage,  remain :  the  flying 
one,  whose  nature  it  is  to  fly,  has  gone. 

Of  his  strangely  delayed  marriage  we  may  conjec- 
ture that  the  scandal  occasioned  by  the  relation  pre- 
ceding it  was  much  less  than  would  have  been,  at  the 
time,  that  of  a  marriage  so  unequal  and  unsuitable. 
Goethe,  the  world-man,  had,  no  doubt,  respect  to  this 
consideration.  Years  pass  on,  —  years  of  faithful 
affection  and  service  on  the  part  of  his  compan- 
ion.    The  power  of  the  hearth  and  home  has  grown 


364  UFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

supreme  with  him.  Troubles  gather  around  him,  — 
troubles  in  which  Christiane's  better  qualities  have 
afforded  him  real  comfort  and  support.  He  deter- 
mines to  give  the  dignity  of  wifehood  to  the  woman 
around  whom  have  centred  the  tender  and  intimate 
associations  of  nearly  twenty  years.  Even  with  these 
grave  reasons  behind  it,  the  marriage  causes  loud  and 
instant  blame.  Goethe's  friends,  however,  were  glad 
of  it,  and  Christiane's  conduct,  we  are  told,  confirmed 
their  approbation  of  the  step. 

The  modern  theory  of  imagination  is  that  all  quick 
and  fine  perception  is  in  a  great  degree  dependent 
upon  it.  We  must  think  Goethe  in  this  respect 
most  exceptionally  gifted.  In  the  wide  range  of 
female  character  which  his  works  unfold  to  us,  this 
perception  of  the  beautiful  impresses  me  as  the  trait 
most  characteristic  of  him.  The  exquisite  tenderness 
and  simplicity  of  his  Gretchen,  so  unstrained,  so  true 
to  nature,  shows  the  wonderful  sense  with  which  he 
looked  upon  the  lowliest  creatures,  Egmont's  Clar- 
chen  has  the  same  pathos,  though  not  the  same 
character.  Gretchen's  sweet  soul  makes  itself  felt 
through  the  poverty  of  her  speech,  which  is  narrow 
and  all  peasant-like.  Clarchen  is  city-bred,  and  has 
the  gift  of  expression  :  — 

"Freudvoll  und  leidvoll, 
GedankenvoU  seyn  ; 
Himmel  hoch  jauchzend, 
Zum  Tode  betriibt : 
Gliicklich  allein 
1st  die  Seele,  die  liebt." 


GOETHE'S   WOMEN.  365 

Of  this  simple  womanhood  he  has  also  given  us  a 
charming  picture  in  that  dialogue  which  brings  be- 
fore us  a  man  of  high  culture,  who,  among  the  ruins 
of  some  ancient  fane  or  city,  encounters  a  mother 
with  her  infant  child.  He  muses  of  the  past,  and  of 
all  the  great  "  may  have  beens."  The  woman  can 
tell  him  nothing  of  all  this,  has  no  talisman  with 
which  to  call  up  visions  of  centuries  long  vanished. 
But  her  baby  wakes,  and  she  speaks  to  him  the  lan- 
guage of  all  time  :  — 

"  Hat  es  gesclilafeu,  liebes  Herz  !  " 

And  this  brings  a  ray  of  purest  light  serene  into  the 
sombre  picture. 

Equally  at  home  is  he  with  high  dames,  —  with 
Leonora  of  Este,  Tasso's  beloved,  —  with  the  calm, 
sweet  daughter  of  Agamemnon. 

This  sense  of  beauty,  then,  clothes  the  Goethean 
world  with  varied  glories.  It  is  universal,  in  shadow 
as  in  light.  It  lifts  the  depths  of  human  nature  into 
the  daylight  of  God's  providence.  To  its  fine  inter- 
pretation, nothing  is  absolutely  common,  nothing  is 
hopelessly  unclean.  Nor  is  this  a  mere  worship  of 
what  may  delight  the  outer  senses.  The  value  of  the 
beautiful,  in  form,  in  character,  and  in  life,  —  this 
deep  and  steadfast  persuasion  goes  with  our  poet 
from  his  first  work  to  his  last.  Deeply  Christian 
is  this  trait,  for  it  is  the  combination  of  the  three 
foremost  graces  of  Christianity,  Faith,  Hope,  and 
Charity. 


366  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

An  intense  sense  of  the  pleasurable  accompanied 
this  keen  perception  of  all  beauties.  The  expres- 
sion of  this,  here  and  there,  has  led  many  to  think  of 
Goethe  as  an  Epicurean,  in  the  least  worthy  inter- 
pretation of  the  term.  He  belongs,  on  the  contrary, 
if  to  the  sect  at  all,  to  its  high  philosophic  order. 
This  view  will,  in  all  probability,  have  been  suffici- 
ently presented  and  considered  in  this  philosophic 
company.  I  need  not  dwell  upon  the  love  of  scien- 
tific observation  and  research  which  eminently  phiced 
him  with  the  great  dignitaries  of  the  sect.  But  of 
his  eudaimonistic  temperament  itself  I  have  a  word 
to  say. 

Pleasure-lovers  are  of  two  sorts,  the  self-engrossed 
and  the  benevolent.  It  is  a  narrow  interpretation, 
even  of  enjoyment,  which  can  regard  it  as  a  solitary 
good,  in  which  the  welfare  of  others  has  properly  no 
part.  I  cannot  for  one  moment  think  of  Goethe  as 
imprisoned  in  the  fetters  of  this  selfish  greed,  which 
grasps  what  others  offer,  snatches  what  they  refuse, 
and  exults  in  what  it  gathers,  while  it  gives  nothing. 
No,  that  serene  nature  must  have  been  a  light-diffus- 
ing one.  Where  he  came,  things  took  on  at  once  a 
brighter  aspect.  The  dull  and  trivial  small  change  of 
society  was  redeemed  in  his  hands  to  a  genuine  cur- 
rency ;  the  icicles  of  form  and  custom  became  living 
gems  in  his  sunshine.  He  was  a  great  present  help 
and  power,  and  his  literary  legacies,  precious  as  they 
are,  are  poor  in  comparison  with  what  it  would  have 
been  to  see  him,  to  hear  him,  to  feel  his  wonderful 


GOETHE'S   WOMEN.  367 

magnetism  for  one  half-hour.  This  great  soul  carried 
its  great  life  with  it,  and  made  a  paltry  Ducal  resi- 
dence the  literary  centre  of  Continental  Europe. 
Kings  and  conquerors  did  him  homage.  He,  ren- 
dering respect  and  courtesy  where  they  were  due, 
paid  homage  only  to  truth. 

The  last  scene  comes.  Is  it  still  the  Eternal 
Womanly  ?  Not  to  laurel  and  crown  does  it  call 
thee,  Goethe!  not  to  the  princely  court,  the  gay 
dames,  the  admiring  world.  All  this  thou  hast  had, 
as  was  thy  right.  Thou  hast  wrought  in  thy  morn- 
ing, and  noontide,  and  evening.  Night  comes  now, 
and  brings  thee  rest.  Like  a  little  child  on  its 
mother's  breast  the  great  man  sinks  back  on  the 
bosom  of  the  infinite  love.  The  Eternal  Womanly, 
the  eternally  loving,  folds  him  to  a  slumber  which,  as 
we  think  of  it,  seems  to  still  for  a  moment  the  heart 
of  the  world. 


368  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 


XIII. 
GOETHE'S  FAUST. 

By  W.  T.  HARRIS. 

We  have  often  heard  that  Shakespeare  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  greatest  of  the  world's  literary  men. 
Especially  since  Coleridge  and  Carlyle  made  known 
to  us  the  analyses  of  the  great  literary  critics  and 
philosophers  of  Germany,  this  verdict  has  been  gain- 
ing universal  acceptance  among  English-speaking 
nations.  The  significance  of  this  estimate  of  Shake- 
speare is  not  so  easy  to  discover.  Let  any  young 
person  try  to  state  wherein  the  great  world-poets  are 
so  eminent  above  their  fellows,  and  he  may  be  led  to 
change  his  opinion  many  times  before  he  satisfies 
himself  or  us  with  the  standard  of  criticism  that  he 
adopts.  Is  it  the  music  of  Shakespeare's  verse,  or 
the  charm  of  his  metaphor,  or  the  interest  of  his 
situations,  or  the  ideal  suggestions  of  his  words,  or 
the  conformity  of  his  dramatic  solutions  to  the  de- 
sires and  aspirations  of  the  heart  ?  No,  it  is  not  any 
one  nor  all  of  these  things  that  would  or  could  de- 
serve the  honor  that  is  paid  to  Shakespeare,  or  Dante, 
or  even  Homer. 

It  is  doubtless  a  great  thing  —  far  greater  than 
the  items  mentioned  —  to  have  the  poetical  insight 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  369 

that  can  see  the  spiritual  significance  of  things,  and 
express  this  by  metaphor  and  personification.  In 
proportion  to  the  insight  of  the  poet,  he  sees  the  cor- 
respondence between  the  visible  and  invisible,  and 
invents  new  modes  of  expression  for  truth  discerned 
internally.  The  great  world-poets  have  this  facidty 
in  an  eminent  degree,  but  they  share  it  with  other 
great  poets.  Their  place  apart  from  and  above  the 
circle  of  great  poets  is  due  to  something  else  than 
this  eminent  degree  of  insight  into  the  spiritual  cor- 
respondences in  nature.  To  this  insight  they  add 
what  may  be  called  an  ethical  insight,  which  may 
be  more  fully  described  as  an  intuitive  knowledge 
of  human  life  in  its  individual  and  social  aspects. 
Shakespeare  and  Homer  see  in  every  deed  its  conse- 
quences to  society,  and  the  retroactive  consequences 
upon  the  doer.  We  call  such  insight  a  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  —  a  knowdedge  of  life. 

Given  a  human  action,  certain  effects  wiU  follow. 
But  this  action  has  also  presuppositions,  and  these 
the  great  poet  sees  as  well  as  the  consequences.  He 
not  only  sees  them,  but  presents  them  in  their  com- 
pleteness. Shakespeare  probed  human  experience 
to  the  bottom,  and  discovered  one  by  one  all  of  its 
presuppositions,  and  collected  them  and  exhibited 
them  to  the  spectator.  Inasmuch  as  there  is  no 
isolated  man,  but  each  one  is  a  member  of  society 
it  is  requisite  to  portray  the  status  of  society,  in 
order  to  explain  the  particular  deed  of  the  individual. 
A  common   man  acts  in  accordance  with  use  and 

24 


370  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

wont,  and  follows  without  deviation  the  beaten  track 
marked  out  for  him  by  his  fellows,  —  his  immediate 
kinsmen  and  neighbors.  The  heroic  character,  with 
an  eccentric  orbit,  collides  with  society  and  makes  a 
theme  for  tragedy.  In  the  portrayal  of  such  col- 
lisions the  ethical  might  of  society  and  the  daemonic 
power  of  the  individual  come  into  clear  relief,  and 
furnish  us  opportunity  to  study  social  and  ethical 
laws.  For  it  is  only  when  we  feel  the  universality 
and  necessity  of  a  determination  or  characteristic 
that  we  truly  know  it. 

While  it  satisfies  the  ordinary  story-teller  to  relate 
the  direct  particulars  of  the  collision  of  his  hero,  and 
these  only,  nothing  will  content  Shakespeare  but  a 
complete  presentation  of  all  the  accessories.  His 
drama  will  so  expound  the  action  that  we  may  see 
the  antecedents  which  have  furnished  occasion,  as 
well  as  all  the  concomitant  reactions  which  accom- 
pany and  follow  it.  A  very  small  item  being  given, 
—  by  some  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  Holinshed,  or 
Saxo  Grammaticus,  —  Shakespeare  proceeds  to  dis- 
cover the  world  of  presuppositions  necessary  to  make 
that  isolated  item  a  piece  of  living  reality.  Given 
the  small  arc,  and  he  computes  the  total  circle ;  given 
the  deed  of  Hamlet,  or  Cymbeline,  or  Macbeth,  and 
forthwith  he  conjures  up  all  the  concrete  relations, 
the  Family,  Society,  and  State,  —  the  moral  status  of 
the  individual,  and  his  ethical  interaction  with  the 
social  condition  in  which  he  lives,  and  the  subtle 
casuistry  by  which  the  hero  directs  his  course. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  371 

An  insight  into  the  correspondence  between  nature 
and  mind  is  the  first  requisite  of  a  great  poet ;  but 
an  equal  insight  into  the  ethical  relation  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  social  whole  is  the  additional  requisite. 
Without  this  second  insight  into  human  life,  the  poet 
cannot  belong  to  the  select  circle  of  world-poets.  He 
may  "write  poetry  for  poets,"  —  as  it  is  called, — 
with  the  former  species  of  insight ;  but  he  cannot  be 
a  people's  poet  unless  he  sees  the  mediation  of  the 
individual  with  the  institutions  of  the  race.  For 
while  the  individual  acts  in  his  own  person,  the 
social  whole  acts  through  institutions  and  through 
individuals  set  apart  and  endowed  with  representa- 
tive might.  No  deed  is  isolated,  all  deeds  are  inter- 
dependent ;  only  the  totality  of  conditions  enables 
us  to  comprehend  the  puniest  act.  See  the  part  in 
the  whole,  and  then  you  are  able  to  see  the  reflection 
of  the  whole  in  the  part. 

This  is  not  a  doctrine  of  necessity  and  fatalism,  as 
it  might  at  first  seem,  but  the  true  doctrine  of  free- 
dom and  moral  responsibility.  Freedom  demands 
self-determination,  —  that  the  deed  shall  return  upon 
its  author,  so  that  he  shall  receive  its  consequences. 
Now,  human  society,  looked  at  closely,  is  an  organ- 
ism for  this  very  purpose.  The  individual  reflects 
society  and  is  reflected  by  society.  What  he  deals 
out  to  his  neighbors  comes  back  to  him,  in  circles  of 
greater  or  less  circumference,  according  to  the  degree 
of  generality  in  which  he  works.  Through  society 
in  its  industrial,  domestic,  and  social  aspects,  this 


372  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

reflection  of  his  deed  upon  the  doer  is  of  an  implicit 
character;  in  the  State  it  is  explicit;  the  State 
letting  him  go  free  when  his  deed  does  not  infringe 
on  the  rights  of  society,  but  otherwise  reflecting  back 
his  deed  upon  him  in  the  inconvenient  form  of 
prison  bars  and  hempen  cords. 

The  deed  must  be  shown  in  its  relations  in  order 
to  exhibit  this  reflection ;  the  fewer  relations,  the 
less  reflection  and  the  less  truth.  Shakespeare  excels 
all  poets  in  the  portrayal  of  this  reflection  of  the 
deed  upon  the  doer.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  of  a 
poet  that  he  shall  be  conscious  of  his  method,  or  of 
the  logical  process  involved  in  the  dramatic  relations 
which  he  places  before  us.  No  artist  should  divide 
his  attention  between  the  abstract  and  the  concrete 
in  this  manner.  His  best  work  he  will  accomplish 
from  the  instinct  of  his  art.  Shakespeare  instinct- 
ively adopted  his  method  of  exhaustively  reflecting 
and  presenting  the  elements  of  a  situation,  and  we 
doubt  not  he  felt  rather  than  thought  that  this  and 
that  accessory  must  be  uttered  and  expressed,  be- 
cause it  stood  out  in  his  creative  imagination  as 
essentially  belonging  to  the  representation  of  the 
deed. 

The  correspondence  between  spiritual  being  and 
nature  renders  possible  the  expression  of  what  is  seen 
as  inward  fact.  All  language  has  arisen  through  this 
first  insight  of  the  poet.  The  second  insight  of  the 
poet  has  given  us  the  ethical  sentiments,  the  feeling 
of  the  solidarity  of  the  individual  with  the  social 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  373 

whole.  Slightly  paraphrasing  Shakespeare's  language 
in  "  Troilus  and  Cressida":  "Man,  however  richly  he 
may  be  endowed,  ["  how  dearly  ever  parted,"]  liow- 
ever  much  he  may  possess  in  world's  goods  or  intel- 
lectual acquirements,  cannot  make  boast  to  have  that 
which  he  hath,  nor  feels  what  he  possesses  but  by 
reflection  from  the  recognition  of  his  fellow  men  ;  as 
when  his  virtues  shining  upon  others  heat  them, 
and  they  retort  that  heat  again  to  the  first  giver." 
This  thought  becomes  the  possession  of  mankind  in 
an  emotional  form  through  the  works  of  the  world- 
poets. 

As  Orpheus  is  fabled  to  have  built  Thebes  with 
the  sound  of  his  lyre,  so  each  people  has  its  Orpheus 
who  has  made  a  spiritual  city  for  it.  Although  the 
great  artist  does  not  first  think  out  his  subject  in  a 
logical  or  philosophical  form,  and  then  proceed  to 
clothe  it  in  marble,  in  tones,  or  in  rhymes  and  metre, 
yet  his  creative  imagination  seizes  and  fixes  the 
shapes  and  forms  which  hover  before  it  as  typical 
expressions  of  his  problem  of  life.  For  each  person 
finds  himself  here  involved  in  a  "  problem  of  life." 
Nevertheless,  a  work  of  art  is  not  an  allegory.  It  is 
rather,  as  Carlyle  says,  a  phantasmagory  embody- 
ing a  many-sided  meaning.  When  we  analyze  it, 
we  may  find  logic  and  dialectic  in  it  as  well  as  in 
other  objects,  —  or  just  as  we  find  laws  in  unconscious 
nature. 

Homer,  the  first  great  people's  poet  of  the  Western 
or  European  world,  taught  man  to  recognize  in  na- 


374  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

ture  the  presence  of  the  human  spirit.  The  motions, 
sounds,  and  apparitions  of  the  beings  of  nature  ex- 
press some  desire  or  meaning  of  the  invisible  con- 
scious beings  who  form  the  sphere  of  reality  behind 
the  visible  world.  But  Homer  reveals  likewise 
human  nature,  both  as  heroic  individual  and  also  as 
representative  oi  institutions,  —  the  State  and  the 
Family.  The  glorious  Achilles,  the  type  of  beautiful 
and  powerful  individuality,  has  to  be  subordinated 
to  legally  constituted  authority,  —  to  Agamemnon, 
who  is  endowed  with  the  power  of  the  nation :  hence 
the  song  of  Troy.  The  Family  too  is  sacred  as  an 
institution,  and  the  attack  upon  it  by  the  hero  Paris 
is  the  occasion  of  the  war.  Thus,  by  presenting  to 
the  Greeks  the  picture  of  their  twofold  nature,  real- 
ized in  beautiful  individuality  and  in  ethical  might, 
Homer  made  his  people  conscious  of  themselves. 

Dante,  another  great  world-poet,  has  revealed  hu- 
man nature  in  its  twofold  aspect  of  religious  life  with 
individual  life  in  conflict  with  it.  The  highest  insti- 
tution, the  Church,  when  not  corrupted  by  individuals 
who  represent  it  temporarily,  is  the  Celestial  Paradise. 
Prom  this  liighest  institution  descends  to  the  insti- 
tutions of  the  State  and  the  Family  a  dispensation  of 
authority  which  gives  them  religious  superiority  over 
the  individual.  By  disregarding  these  institutions 
and  finding  his  motives  of  action  in  his  selfish  pas- 
sions, the  individual  falls  into  one  or  more  of  the 
seven  mortal  sins  and  finds  the  Inferno  in  the  ful- 
ness of  selfish  gratification.     Dante  as  a  poet  does 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  375 

not  so  mucli  make  the  revelation  of  the  beautiful  — 
Homer's  function  —  as  of  the  holy.  He  does  not 
indicate  the  correspondences  of  nature  which  reveal 
the  soul  as  finding  free  expression  in  matter,  but, 
rather,  the  correspondences  that  emblem  the  struggle 
of  the  soul  against  its  material  environment,  and  its 
victory  or  defeat.  Homer  shows  us  the  incarnation 
of  the  soul,  while  Dante  shows  us  its  resurrection. 
Shakespeare  is  the  poet  of  society,  not  so  much  in 
its  national  aspect  or  religious  aspect  as  in  its  free 
civil  aspect.! 

It  is  left  to  the  individual  in  civil  society  to  take 
the  initiative;  he  makes  such  combinations  as  he 
chooses,  in  view  of  his  own  welfare  and  the  conditions 
about  him.  Acting  iu  this  unrestrained  manner,  the 
individual  may  come  into  collision  with  either  insti- 
tution,—  the  State,  Church,  or  Family;  or  he  may 
collide  simply  with  the  normal  conditions  of  free 
civil  activity.  These  conditions  or  laws  of  free  civil 
combination,  which  rule  the  sphere  of  human  activity 
in  which  the  individual  procures  his  food,  clothing, 
shelter,  amusement,  and  culture,  are  the  written  and 
unwritten  laws  of  thrift,  economics,  morality,  and 
courtesy,  which  in  the  aggregate  make  up  social 
policy  and  insure  success  to  the  individual  as  his 
meed.  That  mankind  form  a  solid  unit  socially  is 
the  presupposition  of  Shakespeare,  and  it  has  become 
still  more  a  conscious  presupposition  in  an  epoch  of 

1  "  Homer  is  the  poet  of  the  nation  ;  Shakespeare,  the  poet  of 
society;  Goethe,  the  poet  of  the  individual."     H.  C.  Brockmeyer. 


376         LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

telegraphs,  daily  newspapers,  and  society  novels.  In 
Shakespeare  there  are  no  mere  lay  figures,  but  each 
one  has  a  will  of  his  own  and  a  personal  interest 
commensurate  with  his  individuality.  The  world  of 
Shakespeare,  compared  with  that  of  Homer  or  Dante, 
is  one  of  infinite  details.  But  a  unity  is  found  for 
these  details  in  the  principle  of  reflection.  The 
central  event  of  the  drama  is  reflected  in  each  single 
movement  or  phase  of  movement  in  the  drama.  The 
great  impending  world-tragedy  of  the  senate-house  in 
Eome  is  reflected  in  the  fantasy  of  plebeians,  and 
their  rumor  reaches  Caesar  on  the  fatal  morning : 

"  Most  horrid  sights  seen  by  the  watch.  .  .  . 
Graves  have  yawned,  and  yielded  up  their  dead  ;  .  .  . 
Fierce  fiery  warriors  fought  upon  the  clouds,  .  .  . 
Which  drizzled  blood  upon  the  Capitol." 

The  very  elements  reflect  the  premonitions  in  the 
minds  of  the  people.  So,  too,  around  the  castle  at 
Inverness  on  the  night  of  Duncan's  murder: 

"  The  heavens,  as  troubled  with  man's  act, 
Threaten  his  bloody  stage.  .  .  . 

On  Tuesday  last, 
A  falcon,  towering  in  her  pride  of  place. 
Was  by  a  mousing  owl  hawked  at  and  killed. 
And  Duncan's  horses,  .  .  . 

Turned  wild  in  nature,  broke  their  stalls,  flung  out.  .  .  . 
....   'T  is  said  they  ate  each  other." 

When  seemingly  detached  and  indifferent  details 
reflect  the  central  action  of  the  work  of  art,  its  unity 
is  intensified  to  the  highest  degree.  In  Shakespeare 
we  learn  that  the  slightest  word  or  deed  of  the  man  is 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  377 

reflected  back  by  the  social  environment,  even  when 
the  organized  institutions,  the  State,  the  Church,  the 
Family,  do  not  take  cognizance  of  it. 

In  this  line  of  world-poets  comes  Goethe  as  the 
fourth.  His  central  thought  is  that  of  the  mediation  s.  - 
of  the  individual  for  himself.  In  his  writings  the 
great  institutions  appear  in  the  background  of  the 
scene  in  their  substantial  might ;  but  what  especially 
interests  Goethe  is  not  the  primary  and  immediate 
effect  of  the  deeds  of  the  individual,  nor  yet  their 
secondary  effect,  the  reaction  of  the  institutions 
against  those  deeds,  but  the  third  phase,  that  of  the 
formation  of  character  in  the  individual,  through  his 
readjustment  of  his  aims  and  purposes  in  view  of 
the  effect  of  his  deeds.  The_  growth  of  character 
through  experience  is  not  the  direct  and  conscious  A" 
theme  of  poetry  beTore  Goethe.  Homer  shows  us 
the  change  of  purpose  in  Achilles  by  reason  of  the 
reaction  of  his  deeds  upon  himself.  Dante  shows 
how  the  reaction  of  deeds  upon  the  personality  forms 
an  environment  which  may  be  of  the  Inferno,  the 
Purgatory,  or  the  Paradiso.  The  Purgatory  shows 
growth  of  character  through  persistent  will-power, 
but  it  does  not  descend  from  the  type  and  symbol  to 
the  concrete  every-day  life.  It  constructs  an  arti- 
ficial world  beyond  life,  and  concentrates  the  vices 
and  virtues  into  single  types.  Shakespeare,  on  the 
other  hand,  deals  with  the  very  concrete  itself,  and 
furthermore  does  not  exhibit  the  purgatorial  stage, 
in  which  character  is  formed  by  persistent  endeavor. 


378  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

He  shows  the  Inferno  in  its  concretest  form,  —  rarely 
the  Paradiso.  But  while  he  is  farther  off  than  Dante 
from  Goethe,  in  this  matter  of  the  omission  of  purga- 
tory he  is  nearer  in  the  fact  that  he  approaches  the 
problem  of  the  individual  in  some  of  his  tragedies, 
and  especially  in  his  "  Hamlet."  In  a  certain  sense 
"  Hamlet "  is  the  prototype  of  the  literature  of  the 
present.  The  problem  of  the  individual  is  how  to 
adjust  himself  to  his  time,  or  how  "  to  set  it  right," 
if  he  is  in  advance  of  his  time  in  any  respect.  But 
Shakespeare  only  states  the  problem,  he  does  not 
solve  it.  He  lets  accident,  weakness,  or  surplus  of 
will-power  and  strong  passions,  lead  to  error,  and 
then  shows  how  error  reacts  to  deepen  temporary 
aberration  into  permanent  character.  The  tragic 
characters  tend  to  insanity  through  the  fixing  of 
their  ideas  in  one  channel.  That  which  in  their 
nature  was  a  mere  proclivity,  easily  held  in  abeyance 
by  the  will-power,  now  becomes  an  irresistible  pas- 
sion, forced  onward  by  its  own  results,  and  they  find 
it  easier  to  go  onward  than  to  return. 

Goethe  has  treated  the  problem  of  the  individual 
in  two  great  works  of  art,  —  the  "  Faust "  and  the 
"  Wilhelm  Meister."  In  "  Faust "  the  individual  has 
measurably  attained  his  culture,  but  finds  himself 
Y  in  collision  with  the  world  through  the  fact  that  he 
has  arrived  at  agnosticism.  The  "  Meister "  traces 
for  us  the  career  of  a  youth,  from  the  beginning  at 
the  bottom  of  the  ladder,  up  to  a  point  where  he 
becomes  clear  in  regard  to  his  relations  to  the  world. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  379 

Faust  is  relatively  mature  as  regards  his  education 
or  culture.  Meister  is  immature  in  regard  to  every- 
thing. 

Inasmuch  as  the  problem  of  the  individual  is  not 
that  of  the  production  of  the  universal,  —  not  the 
founding  of  a  state,  or  a  church,  or  any  great  insti- 
tution, but  rather  the  adjustment  of  himself  as  an 
individual  to  the  institutions  already  existing,  —  it 
follows  that  the  first  occupation  to  which  he  is  called 
is  that  of  education,  —  education,  however,  in  the 
broadest  sense  of  the  word.  To  adapt  the  individual 
to  life,  to  solve  his  problem,  is  to  educate  him  into 
such  habits  of  living  that  he  may  contribute  his  mite 
to  society  and  receive  in  return  the  help  of  his  fellow- 
men.  The  individual  in  each  epoch  of  civilization 
has  his  revolt  against  the  subjugation  of  his  indepen- 
dence. He  does  not  wish  to  be  subordinated,  with- 
out his  consent,  to  an  alien  might.  The  process  of 
education  reconciles  him  to  the  institutions,  by  con- 
vincing him  that  they  are  necessary  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  rational  self.  If  they  had  not  been  made 
by  others,  and  handed  down  from  the  immemorial 
past,  he  would  set  about  making  them  now.  As  it 
is,  he  builds  them  anew  by  giving  them  his  hearty 
support.  Progress  of  the  individual  on  this  line  is 
a  continued  participation  in  the  civilization  of  one's 
age,  —  a  thoroughly  positive  citizenship. 

But,  over  against  this,  there  is  possible  another 
career  of  education  or  culture.  Supposing  that  there 
is  a  very  deep  spirit  of  independence  in  the  individual, 


380  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

he  finds  a  difficulty  in  the  bridge  that  leads  from  his 
own  opinions  and  conceits  to  the  adoption  of  the 
conviction  of  society.  He  rebels  against  the  re- 
quired subordination  to  public  opinion,  and  will  not 
bow  to  its  behests,  either  as  fashion  of  the  com- 
munity, social  usage,  law  of  the  state,  or  mandate  of 
religion.  He  stands  at  the  threshold,  and  demands 
of  each  that  it  shall  demonstrate  to  him  its  necessity 
as  a  rational  thing  before  he  shall  adopt  it.  He  will 
yield  to  it  if  it  proves  its  rational  character,  but  if 
it  is  only  a  conventional  affair,  a  mere  fashion,  he 
will  have  none  of  it.  Now  the  cases  of  strong  indi- 
■  viduality  may  become  so  frequent  as  to  be  the  rule, 
instead  of  the  exception.  Then  an  age  of  revolution 
ensues,  and  the  education  of  the  age  lays  stress  on  the 
self-activity  of  the  individual,  and  inveighs  against 
authority.  The  centrifugal  power  of  individuality  is 
increased,  and  the  centripetal  power  of  obedience  to 
established  order  becomes  weakened,  until  it  loses 
its  constraining  power.  The  French  Revolution  en- 
sues. Individuality  alone  is  held  sacred,  and  all 
external  authority  accursed.  Sansculottism  is  the 
result.  Under  the  banner  of  Liberty,  Equality,  and 
Fraternity  for  all,  there  is  a  swift  descent  to  abso- 
lute personal  tyranny.  Each  one  finds  a  limit  to  his 
liberty  in  the  liberty  of  his  fellow,  and  through  the 
collision  arises  universal  distrust.  The  guillotine  is 
the  only  remedy.  Only  dead  enemies  are  safe  ene- 
mies to  have.  Disciplined  by  this  reign  of  terror, 
authority  is  again   restored.     Eational  authority,  it 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  381 

has  beea  found,  must  assert  itself  first  as  a  mere 
external  constraint  against  the  individual,  and  ini- 
tiate a  process  of  enlightenment  in  him.  He  may 
learn  why  he  obeys  law  and  duty  and  fashion,  and 
change  his  blind  obedience  into  a  rational  obedience, 
which  is  freedom.     But  at  all  events  he  must  obey. 

In  Goethe's  life,  extending  from  1749  to  1832,  the 
one  great  event  in  world  history  is  the  French  Eevo- 
lution.  Indeed,  our  American  Eevolution,  with  its 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  its  "  All  men  are 
born  free  and  equal,"  is  in  a  certain  sense  a  reflection 
of  the  European  movement.  Not  only  France,  but 
all  Europe,  had  been  set  aflame  in  Goethe's  youth 
by  Eousseau's  work  on  the  Inequality  among  Men. 
Their  thoughts  had  been  turned  in  the  direction  of 
democracy  by  his  "  Contrat  Social "  and  his  "  ]fimile." 
The  conservators  of  institutions  knew  no  means  of 
checking  the  revolution  in  the  popular  consciousness. 
No  intellectual  bridge  could  be  furnished,  over  which 
it  could  go  from  pure  individualism  to  an  insight 
into  the  necessity  of  institutions  for  the  realization  of 
freedom.  Hence,  all  things  were  readjusted  by  revo- 
lution. In  the  end,  a  necessity,  which  all  could  see,  re- 
established institutional  authority  in  France.  Mean- 
while the  rest  of  Europe  looked  on  and  pondered  the 
problem.  The  German  mind  had  set  itself  about  the 
task  of  discovering  a  theoretical  necessity  for  the  in- 
stitutions of  civilization.  Immanuel  Kant,  startinff 
from  the  theoretical  foundation  of  Hume,  —  which 
might  be  regarded  as  the  basis  also  of  Eousseauism, — 


382  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

had  reduced  the  problem  to  its  lowest  terms,  and 
finally  demonstrated  the  necessity  of  the  postulates 
of  authority,  moral  and  otherwise,  for  the  conduct  of 
human  life.  Eight  years  before  the  destruction  of 
the  Bastile,  Kant  published  his  theoretical  philoso- 
phy, "  A  Critique  of  Pure  Eeason,"  showing  the  limits 
of  the  speculative  faculty  to  grasp  the  problems  of  the 
world.  The  year  before  the  French  Eevolution  be- 
gan, he  published  the  "  Critique  of  the  Practical  Eea- 
son," completing  his  demonstration  of  the  necessity 
in  human  nature  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  individual 
to  his  higher  self,  as  defined  in  the  moral  law  and 
organized  into  institutions  in  the  form  of  civilization. 
Thus,  while  the  historical  process  went  on  in  France, 
as  an  external  phenomenon  with  deafening  explo- 
sions, in  the  still  world  of  German  thought  there 
went  on  a  corresponding  theoretical  process,  which 
more  swiftly  reached  the  positive  solution.  But  there 
was  another  solution  in  progress.  In  the  world  of 
literature  a  new  world-poet  had  been  born,  who  was 
to  devote  his  entire  life  to  the  same  problem,  and  to 
leave  its  solution  in  great  works  of  art. 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  any  of  the  solutions 
of  this  problem  of  individualism  are  merely  negative. 
As  suggested  by  Hume,  stated  by  the  Encyclopaedists, 
put  into  universal  literary  form  by  Eousseau,  occasion 
was  given  for  a  threefold  answer.  There  was  the 
practical  answer,  realistic  to  the  last  degree,  —  the 
answer  beginning  with  the  destruction  of  the  Bastile, 
passing  through  the  Eeign  of  Terror  into  its  logical 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  383 

consequence,  Napoleonism,  and  closing  at  Waterloo. 
There  was  the  theoretic,  speculative  solution  in  the 
Kantian  Critiques  of  the  Reason,  and  besides  this 
the  solution  of  the  world-literary  man,  Goethe. 
The  political  answer  was  not  a  mere  negative  one, 
for  it  refused  to  return  to  its  beginning.  All  Europe 
read  the  verdict :  No  more  abstract  tyranny  for  the 
people.  Authority,  it  is  true,  there  must  be;  yes,  but 
an  authority  that  expresses  the  welfare  of  the  social 
whole,  and  is  reflected  in  the  rational  conviction  of 
'each  individual.  Not-only  France  came  to  this  bas.is, 
but  all  Europe  was  led  to  adopt  it.  The  Kantian  so- 
lution in  its  first  aspect  is  negative:  "Man  can'^i^t^ 
know  truth  theoretically,"  —  the  conclusion  of  the 
Critiqjie  of  the  Purq  Reason.  But  in  the  Critique  of 
the  Practical  Reason  the  solution  is  positive.  Man 
in-order  to  be  a  social  being,  or  even  a  rational  being^^ 
must  set  up  above  himself  the  moral  law  as  absolute 
authority.  In  this  moral,  authority  root  the  insti- 
tutions of  civilization :  they  are  its  instruments  of 
realization.  The  literary  solution  of  Goethe  is  like- 
wise thoroughly  affirmative.  Rousseau  had  given 
literary  form  to  the  problem.  In  his  wonderful  prose, 
the  question  went  home  to  the  consciousness  of  Eu- 
rope and  Europeans,  wherever  they  were.  Goethe 
put  into  literary  form  the  answer  to  this  problem, 
and  his  answer  is  reaching  the  consciousness  of  the 
world,  by  progressive  degrees,  throughout  this  cen- 
tury and  the  centuries  to  follow. 

The  individual,  as  we  have  seen,  if  he  is  endowed 


384  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

with  a  strong  feeling  of  independence,  may  at  any 
time  stand  on  his  threshold  and  challenge  the  ap- 
proach of  authority.  As  a  mere  individual  affair,  it 
is  not  of  much  significance.  But  it  is  possible  also 
to  find  an  entire  historical  epoch,  as  we  have  seen, 
given  to  this  assertion  of  the  individual  against  ex- 
ternal  authority.  This  genesis  of  individual  protest 
against  all  authority  justifies  its  treatment  by  a  world- 
poet  as  a  world-problem.  Or,  it  might  be  said,  the 
universal  nature  of  the  problem  avails  to  give  a  uni- 
versal significance  to  its  literary  solution  and  to  elevate 
Goethe  into  the  rank  of  world-poet. 

We  learn  that  Goethe,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty 
years,  discovered  in  the  popular  legend  of  Faust  the 
vehicle  for  the  literary  statement  of  the  problem  and 
its  solution.  He  saw,  in  short,  the  problem  of  the 
reconciliation  of  man  as  individual  with  man  as  social 
whole,  and  divined  the  affirmative  answer.  He  tells 
us  himself,^  in  his  letter  to  Wilhelm  von  Hum- 
boldt, in  1832,  that  his  youthful  conception  of  Faust 
had  been  before  him  for  more  than  sixty  years,  "  the 
whole  series  having  been  from  the  first  clear  to  me, 
though  not  in  all  their  details."  "  I  have  always,"  he 
writes,  "  quietly  kept  my  original  plan  in  view,  and 
have  worked  out  singly  those  scenes  which  happened 
to  interest  me  most ;  so  that  there  remained  gaps  in 
the  Second  Part,  only  to  be  bridged  over  by  investing 
them  with  an  interest  proportioned  to  the  rest." 

^  Quoted  by  Hermann  Grimm,  "Life  and  Times  of  Goethe."    See 
English  Translation  by  Sarah  Holland  Adams,  p.  502. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  385 

Faust  as  a  mythological  character  embodies  the 
conception  of  an  individual  who  obtains  the  service 
of  the  intellect  for  his  selfish  ends,  and  sacrifices  his 
future  good  for  present  enjoyment.  In  its  different 
elaborations  it  had  come  to  express  nearly  every  one 
of  the  phases  that  Goethe  afterwards  united  in  his 
■work,  with  the  essential  exception  that  there  was  no 
other  than  a  tragic  denouement  for  its  hero.  Using 
this  legend  for  a  vehicle,  Goethe,  after  his  manner, 
connected  and  subordinated  the  details  into  one 
whole  which  animated  the  parts.  Every  circum- 
stance had  its  motive  furnished  for  it.  That  which  '^' 
lay  in  it  as  enigmatic  or  unconscious,  Goethe  brought  ^ 
up  to  light  and  expressed  with  fulness.  Why  should  s* 
Faust  sell  his  soul  to  the  Evil  One  ?  Evidently, 
thought  Goethe,  the  all-sufficient  motive  for  this  is 
despair  of  attaining  the  blessedness  of  divine  life. 
What  does  such  despair  presuppose  ?  Unsatisfied 
aspiration,  was  the  reply.  The  condition  of  this, 
again,  perennially  arose  through  a  species  of  philo- 
sophic speculation,  which  arrived  at  the  conviction 
that  the  Universal  Power  of  Nature  is  not  a  personal 
one  like  man,  but  something  formless  and  negative 
to  the  persistence  of  all  forms. 

In  the  eighth  book  of  his  Autobiography,  he  tells 
us  of  his  studies  of  the  alchemists  and  Hermetic 
writers.  He  carried  these  on  in  his  twentieth  year, 
assisted  by  his  friend,  the  Fraiilein  von  Klettenberg. 
They  read  the  works  of  Welling,  Paracelsus,  Basil 
Valentine,  Van  Helmont,  and  Starkey.     He  traced 

25 


386  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

all  tliese  writings  to  their  source  in  the  Neo-Platonic 
school  of  philosophers.  Here  was  a  fountain  of 
theosophy.  Those  thinkers  busied  themselves  with 
the  problem  of  Nature  and  the  Absolute.  The  His- 
tory of  the  Church  and  of  the  Heretics,  by  Arnold, 
gave  him  the  necessary  clue  to  the  relation  which 
these  Neo-Platonic  speculations  held  to  the  accepted 
Christian  doctrines,  and  at  this  early  age  Goethe  had 
grappled  seriously  with  the  profoundest  questions 
that  can  occupy  the  mind  of  man.  Nowhere  as  in 
the  history  of  heresy  do  we  discover  the  genuine 
speculative  basis  of  the  Christian  dogmas.  The 
heresies  arose  through  an  effort  on  the  part  of  indi- 
viduals to  find  the  necessary  truth  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  Church.  The  real  speculative  basis  of  these 
doctrines  was  developed  by  the  Church  fathers  in 
their  controversial  treatises  directed  against  those 
heresies.  One  familiar  with  those  theological  dis- 
cussions, and  especially  with  the  Neo-Platonic  and 
Gnostic  speculations,  will  not  be  surprised  to  read, 
in  the  eighth  book  of  the  "  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung," 
the  statement  of  the  view  which  Goethe  himself  had 
formed.^  Attention  is  called  particularly  to  his 
view,  of  the  possible  annihilation  of  the  wicked  by 
continued  concentration  upon  themselves,  and  of  the 
prevention  of  this  by  an  act  of  grace. 

The  speculations  of  Gnosticism  and  Neo-Platonism 
were  little  known  during  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
contact  with  the  Arabian  learning  in  the  tenth  and 

1  Page  300  of  Bohn's  Translation. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  387 

succeeding  centuries,  and  finally  the  westward  mi- 
gration of  learned  Greeks  after  the  fall  of  Constanti- 
nople, gave  a  great  impulse  to  the  study  of  mysticism 
in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  A  mixture 
of  physical,  metaphysical,  and  theological  doctrines, 
expressed  in  a  technique  derived  from  all  three 
sources,  constituted  this  mysticism,  often  called 
"  Theosophy."  The  cliemical  knowledge  involved 
originated,  of  course,  with  the  Arabians,  and  it  is 
important  to  note  that  the  metaphysics  and  theology 
were  influenced  in  their  doctrines  by  the  alchemy 
connected  with  it.  For  chemistry  reveals  to  us  the 
mutability  of  material  forms.  In  the  retort,  a  sub- 
stance can  be  compelled  to  change  from  one  form  to 
another. 

The  tendency  of  the  mind  is  to  generalize  the 
facts  before  it.  Hence  the  alchemist  swiftly  con- 
cluded :  there  is  no  form  that  abides,  not  even  the 
form  of  consciousness  whose  shape  is  to  be  subject 
and  object  of  itself.  The  substance,  or  true  being,  is 
formless.  It  is  an  energy,  but  an  energy  that  acts 
only  in  two  ways,  to  produce  form  or  to  destroy  form. 
In  itself  it  is  in  no  wise  any  form  whatever.  Form 
belongs  only  to  product  or  result,  —  it  is  natura  na- 
turata,  and  not  natura  naturans.  What  follows  from 
this  is  evidently  the  doctrine  of  Pantheism :  God  is 
pure  negative  Might,  and  all  that  has  form  is  finite 
and  perishable.  Man,  too,  is  perishable.  Moreover, 
by  reason  of  the  fact  that  consciousness  is  a  form,  it 
cannot  appertain  to  the  Absolute.     Hence,  too,  the 


388  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

Absolute  cannot  be  known  by  human  reason,  because 
there  can  be  nothing  distinguished  except  by  its 
form,  and  hence  a  formless  absolute  is  a  pure  nothing 
to  the  mind.  That  the  legend  of  Faust  is  the  reflec- 
tion in  the  popular  mind  of  this  study  of  alchemy, 
there  is  no  doubt.  Goethe  takes  this  for  granted, 
and  accordingly  places  his  Faust  in  a  lofty  arched 
Gothic  chamber,  surrounded  by  the  appliances  of 
alchemy,  a  library,  and  "  ancestral  lumber."  In  the 
very  first  scene  Goethe  proceeds  to  express  in  the 
mouth  of  Faust  the  agnostic  standpoint  of  Panthe- 
ism :  "  I  have  been  through  all  human  learning,  and 
know  that  nothing  can  be  known."  ^  He  summons  up 
spirits,  the  moving  principle  of  nature,  or  the  Macro- 
cosm which  shows  all  things  in  the  world  connected 
by  interdependence. 

We  cannot  know  one  thing  except  through  the 
rest  on  which  it  depends.  That  which  possesses 
form  is  dependent  on  the  formless.  We  can  pursue 
the  hidden  substance  from  one  form  to  another,  but 
never  overtake  it  in  its  pure  essence.  Hence  Faust, 
who  aspires  to  know  truth,  is  in  despair.  Eecourse 
to  magic  only  serves  to  convince  him  of  the  hope- 
lessness of  knowing  the  Absolute.  For  by  magic  he 
has  summoned  the  spirit  of  the  Macrocosm  and  the 
Earth  Spirit.     The  former  symbolizes  his  study  of 

^  "  In  the  first  sentence  of  the  poem,  the  fundamental  contradic- 
tion, the  theme,  or  the  '  argument,'  is  stated  in  its  naked  abstractness, 
just  as  Achilles'  wrath  is  the  fii-st  sentence  of  the  Iliad."  Brock- 
meyer,  Letters  on  Faust,  III. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  389 

the  infinite  network  of  relations  which  constitutes 
nature.  He  cannot  press  through  these  relations  to 
reach  the  Absolute  ;  or  if  he  does,  he  encounters  pure 
negation  of  all  form.  All  form  is  show  alone,  —  a 
mere  shadowy  manifestation  of  the  Absolute.  Nor 
is  it  any  better  with  the  Earth  Spirit  which  rules  a 
part  of  the  Macrocosm,  the  earth-sphere.  The  celes- 
tial and  the  supercelestial  worlds  are  beyond  the 
sphere  of  the  Earth  Spirit.  But  Faust  cannot  com- 
prehend even  the  earth  process.  It  is  too  general, 
too  vast,  for  him.  The  spirit  that  lives  in  "  Being's 
floods  and  Action's  storm  "  is  so  general  and  so  form- 
less that  he  is  both  birth  and  grave  of  all  form. 
Man  cannot  hope  to  know  him  nor  participate  in  his 
eternity.  Hence  aspiration  for  knowledge  is  spurned 
by  the  Absolute,  and  there  remains  only  despair. 

Here,  therefore,  is  the  matter  for  the  tragedy.^  It 
lies  so  deep  that  it  may  be  regarded  as  including  all 

1  "  The  denial  of  the  possibility  of  the  manifestation  of  self-con- 
scious intelligence  in  the  individual  [i.  e.  the  denial  that  man  can 
know  truth]  is  the  denial  of  the  possibility  of  its  realization  in  the 
family,  society,  and  the  State  [i.  e.  secular  institutions],  as  well  as 
the  denial  of  the  actualization  of  that  intelligence  in  the  forms  of 
Art,  Religion,  and  Philosophy.  [For  there  can  be  no  Art  or  mani- 
festation of  the  infinite  in  the  finite,  if  there  is  no  possibility  of  recog- 
nizing it  by  conscious  intelligence.  So,  too,  religion  and  philosophy 
would  be  impossible.]  Now  if  this  denial  of  the  possibility  of  know- 
ing truth  assume  the  form  of  a  conviction  in  the  consciousness  of 
an  individual,  a  nation,  an  age,  then  there  results  a  contradiction 
which  involves  in  the  sweep  of  its  universality  the  entire  spiritual 
world  of  man.  For  it  is  the  self-consciousness  of  that  individual, 
nation,  or  age  in  direct  conflict  with  itself,  —  not  with  this  or  that 


390  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

other  collisions  within  it.  Most  works  of  art  spe- 
cialize the  collision  and  treat  of  an  attack  on  the 
Family,  or  the  State,  or  some  one  institution;  but 
the  Faust  collision  strikes  at  the  very  nature  of  insti- 
tutions, and  hence  includes  all  the  collisions  treated 
in  Art.i 

Hence  the  collision  is  so  general  that  it  demands 
two  very  different  dramas  for  its  full  treatment.  The 
ordinary  drama  must  deal  with  individuals,  and  show 
them  to  us  in  their  actions  and  sufferings.  But  the 
individual  cannot  embody  all  institutions.  Only  one 
of  these,  the  Family,  can  be  presented  in  its  complete 
circle   of  individuals.     The   State   and   the   Church 

particularity  of  itself,  tut  with  its  entire  content  in  the  sphere  of 
manifestation,  [i.  e.,  as  Mr.  Brockmeyer  has  explained  the  technical 
use  of  "  manifestation,"  it  includes  only  the  sphere  of  the  individual 
man,  and  not  the  sphere  of  institutions,]  with  the  receptivity  for, 
the  production  of,  and  the  aspiration  after  the  Beautiful,  the  Good, 
the  True,  within  the  individual  himself  ;  in  the  sphere  of  realization 
with  the  family,  with  society,  and  with  the  State  ;  and  finally  in 
tlie  sphere  of  actuality  with  art,  religion,  and  philosophy.  Now  this 
contradiction  is  precisely  what  is  presented  in  the  proposition,  '  Man 
cannot  know  truth.'  This  was  in  the  history  of  modern  thought 
the  result  of  Kant's  philosophy,  which  was  the  philosophy  of  Ger- 
many at  the  time  of  the  conception  of  Goethe's  Faust."  Letters  on 
Faust,  III. 

1  "This  theme,  then,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  self-con- 
sciousness in  contradiction  with  itself,  in  conflict  with  its  own 
content.  Hence,  if  the  poem  is  to  portray  this  theme,  this  content 
in  its  totality,  it  must  represent  it  in  three  spheres  :  first,  manifes- 
tation, —  Faust  in  conflict  with  himself ;  second,  realization,  — 
Faust  in  conflict  with  the  family.  Society,  and  the  State  ;  thirdly, 
actualization,  — Ya-Mst  in  conflict  with  art,  religion,  and  philoso- 
phy."    Letters  on  Faust,  III. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  391 

cannot  be  presented  except  typically, by  representative 
individuals  and  by  allegorical  masquerades.  Thus 
we  have  a  First  Part  of  "  Faust,"  in  which  the  in- 
dividual is  shown  to  us  directly  as  unscrupulous 
pleasure-seeker,  who  destroys  the  Family  through  the 
consequences  of  his  deeds,  by  destroying,  one  after 
another,  all  the  individuals  of  it.  Then  follows  a 
Second  Part,  in  which  the  practical  conclusion  of 
"  Faust "  as  it  is  em  bodied  in  the  fiend  Mephis- ' 
topheles  makes  its  appearance  in  the  State ;  then 
shows  itself  in  Art  and  Religion,  and  is  overcome  in 
all  these  realms.  The  poet  does  not  state  for  us  the 
argument  in  logical  terms,  but  he  pictures  for  us 
the  genesis  of  Faust's  convictions,  and  their  conse- 
quences when  carried  out.  » 

The  work  commences  with  the  beautiful  Dedica- 
tion, which  expresses  Goethe's  objective  attitude  to- 
wards the  great  poem  on  the  occasion  of  his  return  to 
it  in  1797,  after  a  lapse  of  twenty-three  years.  The 
Prelude  on  the  Stage  describes  the  three  attitudes 
possible  towards  a  work  of  art.  Art  may  exist  solely  X. 
for  amusement,  in  which  case  the  Merry  Andrew 
would  be  its  culminating  achievement.  To  the 
manager.  Art  is  merely  a  vocation  by  which  he  gets 
his  living,  and  hence  he  looks  beyond  the  content 
to  its  effect  in  "drawing  a  full  house."  Finally, 
Art  to  the  poet  means  the  utterance  of  the  highest 
inspirations,  and  the  picturing  of  human  nature  in 
all  its  tragic  greatness  to  the  astonished  spectator. 
The    poet's    idea    includes    amusement    and    terror, 


392  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

pleasure  and  pain,  —  and,  above  all,  wisdom,  derived 
from  the  spectacle  of  human  nature  in  its  entirety. 
For  this  includes  "the  whole  circle  of  creation, 
and  a  progress  from  heaven  through  the  world  to 
hell,"  and  also  a  counter  movement  in  the  opposite 
direction. 

The  Prologue  in  Heaven  gives  us,  in  the  style  of 
the  old  miracle  play,  a  hint  of  the  vast  design  of 
"Faust."  It  takes  advantage  of  this  crude  form  to 
give  us,  in  the  way  of  an  outline,  a  glimpse  of  the 
spiritual  geography  within  which  we  may  locate  Faust. 
How  the  problem  of  evil  arises  in  creation,  through 
the  very  nature  itself  of  the  creative  process,  is  sug- 
gested. Creation  should  reflect  God,  but  the  reflec- 
tion should  take  place  in  imperfect  creatures,  and 
hence  be  an  imperfect  reflection.  The  finite  individ- 
ual, to  reflect  God,  must  be  first  endowed  with  self- 
activity  or  free  will ;  but  he  may  use  this  selfishly 
as  well  as  piously.  Hence  the  possibility  of  tempta- 
tion by  Mephistopheles,  —  the  spirit  of  negation,  ex- 
clusion, limitation,  finitude,  or  selfishness.  God  has 
placed  in  the  finite  being  a  hunger  for  infinitude,  — 
in  short,  what  is  called  aspiration.  Hence  there  is 
progressive  development  possible.  This  problem  of 
evil  is  inherent  in  any  theory  of  creation.  For  the 
finite  must  by  self-activity  come  into  the  Divine  Im- 
age. But  the  possession  of  freedom  to  act  for  itself 
involves  the  possibility  of  selfish  actions  which  mar 
the  Divine  Image.  The  Prologue  shows  us  the  com- 
prehensiveness of  the  problem  of  "  Faust."    Endowed 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  393 

with  infinite  aspiration,  ("  the  glimmering  of  heaven's 
light  that  he  calls  reason,")  but  with  finite  capacity 
of  intellect  and  will,  man  cannot  choose  but  err.  He 
"  uses  his  light  to  be  most  brutal  of  brutes,"  says 
Mephistopheles.  But  the  Lord  says,  in  substance : 
"  Man  is  prone  to  error  because  he  is  struggling  to 
satisfy  this  aspiration ;  in  his  ignorance  and  restless- 
ness he  tries  one  thing  after  another,  but  will  never 
be  content  with  any  solution  that  does  not  satisfy 
this  divine  aspiration.  Hence  it  is  permitted  to  the 
spirit  of  selfishness  to  hold  out  temptations  to  the 
individual,  offering  satisfaction  to  him  in  the  form  of 
delights  of  the  flesh  or  gratification  of  selfish  ambition 
for  power."  Mephistopheles  thinks  that  he  can  sat- 
isfy this  divinely  created  soul  with  dust  of  the  earth, 
and  so  gain  permanent  acquisition  of  it.  The  Lord 
knows  that,  though  the  soul  can  be  diverted  from  the 
true  way,  it  never  can  remain  satisfied  with  the  wages 
of  sin.  It  will  grow  more  and  more  discontented  and 
restless  with  its  lot.  The  possession  of  the  glim- 
mering of  heaven's  light  in  the  shape  of  reason  will 
forever  prevent  any  finite  pleasure  from  sating  the 
soul  of  Faust,  and  will  make  it  impossible  for  Me- 
phistopheles to  win  his  wager. 

We  start,  in  the  first  scene,  with  the  feeling  of 
despair  at  the  agnosticism  which  Faust  has  fallen 
into.  Tlie  origin  of  this  (in  his  studies  into  alchemy) 
is  shown.  He  comes  upon  the  idea  of  a  universal 
principle  of  relativity  in  nature,  and  concludes,  like 
Herbert  Spencer  in   recent  times,  that  he  pursues 


394  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOEIHE. 

absolute  truth  in  vain.^  He  leaves  the  problem  of 
nature  in  general,  and  confines  his  attention  to  the 
earth,  and  even  here  is  rudely  repulsed.^ 

"  What  am  I  then  capable  of  comprehending,  if  I 
cannot  comprehend  my  earthly  environment  ? "  "  You 
may  know  only  your  trade."  Infinite  subdivision  of 
labor  is  necessary  in  order  that  man,  the  individual, 
may  find  what  he  can  master.  The  same  subdivision 
of  science  is  necessary  in  order  to  get  a  sufficiently 
small  field  of  view  to  enable  the  individual  to  be- 
hold it.     How  absurd  then  to  call  man  a  Microcosm, 

1  "The  conviction  that  human  intelligence  is  incapable  of  ab- 
solute knowledge  is  one  that  has  been  slowly  gaining  ground  as 
civilization  has  advanced."     Spencer's  First  Principles,  p.  68. 

"^  "Receptivity  for  and  production  of  the  truth  are  negated  by  the 
conviction  that  man  cannot  know  truth,  but  on  the  wings  of  aspira- 
tion he  sallies  forth  into  the  realm  of  magic,  of  mysticism,  of  sub- 
jectivity. For  if  reason  with  its  mediation  is  impotent  to  create  an 
object  for  this  aspiration,  let  us  see  what  emotion  and  imagination 
without  mediation  can  do  for  subjective  satisfaction.  And  here  all 
is  glory,  all  is  freedom.  The  imagination  seizes  the  totality  of  the 
universe,  and  revels  in  ecstatic  vision.  What  a  spectacle  !  But, 
alas,  a  spectacle  only  !  How  am  I  to  know,  to  comprehend,  the 
fountain  of  life,  the  centre  of  which  articulates  this  totality  ?  See 
here  another  generalization  :  the  practical  world  as  a  whole  [typified 
in  the  Erd-Geist].  Ah  !  that  is  my  sphere  ;  here  I  have  a  firm 
footing  ;  here  I  am  master  ;  here  I  command  spirits.  Approach 
and  obey  your  master !  '  Yes,  I  'm  he  ;  am  Faust  thy  peer.' 
'Peer  of  the  spirit  thou  comprehendest, — not  of  me.'  No,  in- 
deed, Mr.  Faust,  thou  dost  not  include  within  thyself  the  totality 
of  the  practical  world,  but  only  that  part  thereof  which  thou  dost 
comprehend,  —  only  thy  vocation,  and  hark  !  '  It  knocks  ! '  0 
death  !  I  see  't  is  my  vocation  indeed.  '  It  is  my  famulus  ! '  " 
Letters  on  Faust,  IV. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  395 

and  boast  of  his  power  to  know  the  truth  of  the 
universe  !  ^ 

The  pain  of  this  discovery  is  brought  before  us  by 
the  ensuing  dialogue  between  Faust  the  aspiring  seer 
and  Faust  in  his  vocation  of  professor;  for  Wagner 
the  "  famulus "  is  the  type  of  the  latter.  Faust 
storms  bitterly  against  the  limitations.  He  knows 
the  difference  between  hearsay  and  direct  insight. 
Wacrner  is  seekina:  the  satisfaction  of  his  soul  in 
mere  erudition,  that  collects  but  does  not  compre- 
hend ;  that  declaims  the  eloquence  of  others ;  that 
delights  in  poring  over  parchments;  that  digs  in 
shallow  trash,  and  rejoices  to  find  an  earth-worm. 
Faust  has  been  through  that  stage  of  culture,  and 
knows  that  erudition  alone  can  never  satisfy.  The 
teaching  of  what  he  does  not  thoroughly  comprehend, 
or  grasp  together  as  a  whole,  is  odious  to  liim.^    He 

^  "  '  And  this  too  is  merely  a  delusion  ;  the  great  mystery  of 
the  practical  world  shrinks  to  this  dimension,  —  a  hread-professor- 
ship  ! '  It  would  seem  so  :  for  no  theory  of  the  practical  world  is 
possible  without  the  ability  to  know  truth.  As  individual  you  may 
imitate  the  individual,  as  the  brute  his  kind,  and  thus  transmit  a 
craft ;  but  you  cannot  seize  the  practical  world  in  transparent  forms 
and  present  it  as  an  harmonious  totality  to  your  fellow  man,  for  that 
would  require  that  these  transparent  intellectual  forms  should  pos- 
sess objective  validity,  —  and  this  they  have  not,  according  to  your 
conviction."     Letters  on  Faust,  IV. 

2  "  And  is  this  the  mode  of  existence,  this  the  reality,  the  only 
reality,  to  answer  the  aspiration  which  sought  to  seize  the  universe, 
to  kindle  its  inmost  recesses  with  the  light  of  intelligence,  and  thus 
illumine  the  patli  of  life  ?  Alas  !  reason  gave  us  error,  —  imagina- 
tion gave  us  illusion,  —  and  the  practical  world,  the  will,  a  bread- 


896  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

perceives  on  his  shelf  a  vial  of  poison  and  takes 
it  down.  If  the  Earth-Spirit  scorns  him,  he  in  his 
turn  can  show  his  poM^er  to  rend  asunder  his  body,  — 
the  earthly  concretion  which  holds  him,  or  perhaps 
constitutes  him.  He  can  negate  life,  if  he  cannot 
comprehend  it :  "  Now  is  the  time  to  prove  by  deeds 
that  human  dignity  quails  not  before  the  heights  of 
the  gods."  He  too  can  by  his  own  act  destroy  his 
own  form,  like  the  pantheistic  God  that  is  above  all 
form. 

But  during  his  bitter  meditations  the  night  has 
passed  and  morning  has  come.  Of  all  the  mornings 
of  the  year  this  is  Easter  morning,  the  day  of  the  fes- 
tival celebrating  the  rising  of  the  Son  of  Man  from 
the  dead.  Such  a  festival  celebrates,  therefore,  the 
conviction  that  man  survives  his  finite  individuality 
and  is  immortal.  If  that  religious  belief  is  true  doc- 
trine, it  is  evident  that  the  negative  doctrine  —  of 
the  Earth-Spirit  and  the  Absolute  Eelativity  of  the 
Macrocosm  —  cannot  be  true.  The  Absolute  cannot 
be  a  formless  abstract  power  that  makes  and  breaks 
forms  like  bubbles,  but  it  must  be  an  absolute  Per- 
son, —  yes,  a  divine-human  Being,  —  who  draws  up 
beings  out  of  the  dust  into  his  image,  and  preserves 
their  individuality  beyond  the  grave. 

professorship  !  Nothing  else  ?  Yes  ;  a  bottle  of  laudanum  !  Let 
us  drink  and  rest  forever  !  But  hold,  is  there  nothing  else  really  ? 
No  emotional  nature  ?  Hark  !  What  is  that  ?  Easter  bells  !  The 
recollections  of  my  youthful  faith  in  a  revelation  !  They  must  be 
examined.     We  cannot  leave  yet."     Letters  on  Faust,  IV. 


■1A 


HE 


y 


^ 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  C^LfFi'^'*^^  397 

Faust  listens  to  this  announcement  of  the  New 
Covenant.  After  the  Chorus  of  Angels  announcing 
the  risen  Christ,  comes  the  Chorus  of  Women  singing 
of  the  tender  offices  performed  on  pure  finitude,  —  on 
a  dead  body,  —  and  closing  with  the  lament  at  the 
removal  of  the  physical  remains  of  the  dear  one.  To 
this  the  angels  respond  with  the  comforting  assurance 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  individual  loving  and  loved 
one.  Then  the  disciples  lament  their  separation  from 
the  risen  one,  and  the  angels  exhort  them  to  bring 
into  reality  his  presence,  by  living  his  life  of  love  and 
self-sacrifice  for  others.  This  is  a  complete  statement 
of  Christian  doctrine:  (1.)  God  is  divine-human,  who 
sacrifices  himself  for  men  ;  (2.)  Let  man,  filled  with 
His  spirit,  live  for  others,  thus  making  the  divine 
spirit  the  real  spirit  of  humanity,  and  thus  forming 
the  highest  of  institutions,  the  Church  ;  (3.)  Man  is 
immortal  as  an  individual,  but  by  renunciation  of  his 
selfish  individuality  he  must  be  born  again  as  a  new 
and  free  individuality. 

Faust  hears  these  "  heavenly  tones,"  this  comfort- 
ing hymn,  which  once  in  other  days  he  had  heard 
with  childish  faith.  Life  had  then  seemed  worth  liv- 
ing. How  does  it  happen  that  this  religious  doctrine 
makes  life  worth  living,  while  the  scientific  truth  has 
just  now  led  him  to  suicide  ?  He  will  defer  suicide 
until  he  can  examine  once  again  the  validity  of  reli- 
gion. And  so  he  goes  out  on  Easter  morning  to  see 
what  it  is  that  makes  life  worth  living  to  his  fellow 
men. 


398  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

In  the  scene  before  the  Gate,  he  stops  to  listen  to 
the  voices  that  declare  the  various  objects  in  which 
the  people  can  find  happiness  :  the  hunter's  lodge, 
the  mill,  the  river  tavern,  the  crowd,  pretty  girls, 
strong  beer,  a  pipe  of  stinging  tobacco,  jolly  rows 
and  squabbles,  etc.   '  Faust  takes  note  of  these  objects 
silently,  and  listens  further  to  the  citizens  who  dis- 
cuss town  politics,  and  congratulate  themselves  on 
being  out  of  harm's  way  while  their  fellow  men  in 
Turkey  are  not ;  soldiers,  whose  trade  is  destruction 
of  life  and  property,  singing  of  the  conquest  of  lofty 
castles  and  proud  women,  in  the  same  beautiful  metre 
that  the  angels  had  sung  at  daybreak.     Faust  ad- 
vances   toward    the  crowd  gathered  under  the  lime 
trees,  and  remarks  in  a  learned  way  on  the  influence 
of  advancing  spring  in  thawing  tlie  rivers  and  re- 
viving the  herbage  in  the  fields.     So  this  day  draws 
out  the  people  from  the  vocations  in  which  they  are 
buried  as  in  narrow  tombs,  and  they  come  out  and 
add  color  to  the  landscape.     It  is  a  sort  of  sun-myth, 
apparently,  to  Faust.      He  is  glad,  however,  to  think 
of  a  resurrection  from  the  narrowness  of  one's  voca- 
tion, on  which  the  speech  of  the  Earth-Spirit  had  led 
him  to  reflect  so  bitterly.      As  he   approaches,  all 
crowd  around  him,  to  show  him  the  greatest  lionor 
as  the  wise  physician  who  has  saved  their  lives  from 
the  pestilence.    Wagner  by  his  side  congratulates  him 
on  his  reception,  and  envies  his  happiness  at  being  so 
reverenced.    The  Wagner  element  in  Faust  must  have 
been  greatly  delighted  ;  but  the  doubting  spirit  of  cul- 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  399 

ture  in  him  at  once  reacts.  He  sees  the  other  side  : 
"  My  father  and  I  raged  through  these  vales  and 
mountains  worse  than  any  pestilence  with  our  em- 
pirical remedies  ;  the  patients  died,  and  no  one  asked 
who  got  well ;  and  now  I  must  live  to  hear  the  reck- 
less murderers  praised  ! " 

Although  he  finds  no  happiness  in  the  recognition 
of  his  power  over  his  fellow  men,  he  finds  in  it  a  sug- 
gestion. If  I,  Faust,  cannot  know  truth,  I  can  see  at 
least  what  an  opportunity  for  selfish  gratification  it 
affords  me.  If  the  Earth-Spirit  scorns  me  and  sends 
me  back  to  my  vocation,  I  can  certainly  use  my  voca- 
tion as  the  means  of  procuring  physical  pleasure.  To 
be  sure,  such  a  life  for  the  mere  sake  of  living  is  a 
dog's  life.  For  if  a  man  uses  his  highest  spiritual  pow- 
ers merely  for  "  getting  a  living,"  (meaning  by  that 
expression  procuring  his  food,  drink,  clothing,  and 
shelter  by  it,)  he  does  not  live  for  the  highest  ends,  ' 
but  makes  the  highest  ends  quite  subordinate  to  lower 
aims.  Wagner's  view  of  the  object  of  life  seems  to 
be  a  dog's  view,  or  rather  he  seems  to  make  his  voca- 
tion into  a  dog  which  he  keeps  for  his  service  and 
comfort.  He  accordingly  takes  home  with  him  to  his 
study  the  thought  of  the  dog  view  of  life.^     With  the 

1  To  Wagner  it  is  immaterial  whether  he  knows  what  he  needs, 
provided  he  sees  the  day  when  the  man  who  has  been  worse  to  tlie 
people  than  the  very  pestilence  itself  receives  public  honors;  but  to 
Faust,  to  the  man  really  in  earnest,  —  who  is  not  satisfied  when  he 
has  squared  life  with  life,  and  obtained  zero  for  a  result,  or  who 
does  not  merely  live  to  make  a  living,  but  demands  a  rational  end 
for  life,  and,  in  default  of  that  rational  end,  spurns  life  itself,  —  to 


400  LIFE  AND  GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

poodle  he  returns  to  the  study  pondering  the  view  of 
life  that  proposes  to  live  for  the  sake  of  living.  He 
now  proceeds  to  take  up  the  question  which  had  oc- 
curred to  him  on  hearing  the  bells  on  Easter  morning  : 
Is  a  divine  revelation  possible  to  a  being  who  cannot 
know  the  truth  ? 

The  verse  of  St.  John's  Gospel  that  reveals  the 
nature  of  God  as  divine-human  from  all  eternity  is, 
of  course,  the  special  passage  to  examine.     In  that 

such  a  man  this  whole  scene  possesses  little  significance  indeed.  It 
possesses,  however,  some  significance,  even  for  him  !  For  if  it  is 
indeed  true  that  man  cannot  know  truth,  —  that  the  high  aspira- 
tion of  his  soul  has  no  object,  —  then  this  scene  demonstrates,  at 
least,  that  Faust  possesses  power  over  the  practical  world.  If  he 
cannot  know  this  world,  he  can  at  least  swallow  a  considerable 
portion  of  it,  and  this  scene  demonstrates  that  he  can  exercise 
a  great  deal  of  choice  as  to  the  parts  selected:  do  you  see  this 
conviction  ? 

"  Do  you  see  this  conviction  ?  Do  you  see  this  dog  ?  Consider 
it  well :  what  is  it,  think  you  ?  Do  you  perceive  how  it  encircles  us 
nearer  and  nearer,  —  becomes  more  and  more  certain,  and,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  a  luminous  emanation  of  gold,  of  honor,  of  power,  follows 
its  wake  ?  It  seems  to  me  as  if  it  drew  soft  magic  rings,  as  future 
fetters,  round  our  feet !  See,  the  circles  become  smaller  and 
smaller,  —  't  is  almost  a  certainty,  —  't  is  already  near:  come,  come 
home  with  us  !  The  temptation  here  spread  before  us  by  the  poet, 
to  consider  the  dog  'well,'  is  almost  irresistible  ;  but  all  we  can  say 
in  this  place  is,  that  if  one  will  look  upon  what  is  properly  called  a 
vocation  in  civil  society,  eliminate  from  it  all  higher  ends  and  mo- 
tives other  than  the  simple  one  of  making  a  living,  —  no  matter  with 
what  pomp  and  circumstance,  —  no  doubt  he  will  readily  recognize 
the  poodle.  But  we  must  hasten  to  the  studio  to  watch  further 
developsnents,  for  the  conflict  is  not  as  yet  decided.  We  are  still  to 
examine  the  possibility  of  a  divine  revelation  to  man,  who  cannot 
know  ti'uth."     Letters  on  Faust,  V. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  401 

verse  it  is  revealed  that  God  becomes  a  creature,  and 
manifests  himself  to  creatures.  The  revelation  is 
made  in  the  Greek  language  with  the  word  Logos. 
One  might  say  that  this  word  must  have  meant 
something  to  the  Greek  mind,  or  else  it  would  not 
have  revealed  the  Christian  idea  expressed  by  it. 
But,  at  all  events,  no  one  can  translate  it  into  his 
own  lancTuafje  unless  he  understands  it.  The  die- 
tionary  meaning  of  Logos  is  "  word,"  "  reason,"  etc. 
Faust  tries  "  word,"  but  at  once  reflects  that  a  word 
cannot  be  a  word  before  it  has  a  meaning,  and  hence 
cannot  have  been  "  in  the  beginning."  Logos  must 
therefore  be  translated  "  meaning,"  or  "  sense."  But 
a  meaning  is  not  a  power,  and  hence  cannot  origi- 
nate anything ;  if  the  meaning  were  the  first,  nothing 
would  have  followed.  An  energy  is  required ;  hence 
Logos  must  be  translated  "  Power."  Further  re- 
flection discovers  that  nothing  begins  until  a  power 
acts ;  hence  for  "power"  must  be  substituted  "  deed." 
There  is  a  real  beginning  only  in  a  deed.  But,  alas  ! 
Faust  sees  tliat  he  has  been  enabled  to  find  the  right 
word  solely  by  his  intellect.  If  he  cannot  understand 
the  sense  of  the  original  by  rethinking  it,  he  cannot 
find  words  into  which  to  translate  it.  Therefore,  if 
he  cannot  know  truth,  he  cannot  understand  a  reve- 
lation of  it,  and  hence  there  can  be  no  revelation  of 
it  to  him.^ 

1  "  And  for  this  purpose,  —  our  newly  acquired  conviction  that 
we  possess  power  over  the  practical  world,  although  not  as  yet  in  a 
perfectly  clear  form  before  us,  comfortably  lodged  behind  the  stove, 

26 


402  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

The  poodle  idea  gets  restless  during  this  examina- 
tion. It  has  become  a  serious  matter.  If  I  cannot 
know  truth,  I  can  by  my  power  of  intellect  use  my 
fellow  men  for  my  pleasure.  I  can  take  the  world 
for  my  oyster.  Unscrupulous  self-gratification  at  the 
expense  of  my  fellow  men  is  fiendish.  While  to  ply 
one's  vocation  merely  for  the  sake  of  making  a  living 
is  only  the  idea  of  a  dog,  or  any  other  animal,  to  live 
and  enjoy  myself  at  the  expense  of  the  injury  of  my 
fellows  is  demonic.    Here  is  the  transmutation  of  the 

where  it  properly  belongs,  —  we  take  down  the  original  text  of 
the  New  Testament  in  order  to  realize  its  nieanng  in  our  own 
loved  mother  tongue.  It  stands  written,  '  In  the  beginning  was 
the  Word.'  Word  ?  Word  ?  Never  !  Meaning  it  ought  to  be  ! 
Meaning  what  ?  Meaning  ?  No,  it  is  Power  I  No,  Deed  1  Word, 
meaning,  power,  deed,  — which  is  it?  Alas  !  how  am  I  to  know, 
unless  I  can  know  truth  ?  'Tis  even  so,  our  youthful  recollections 
dissolve  in  mist,  into  thin  air,  and  nothing  is  left  us  but  our  newly 
acquired  conviction,  the  restlessness  of  which  during  this  examina- 
tion has  undoubtedly  not  escaped  your  attention.  '  Be  quiet, 
there,  behind  the  stove.'  '  See  here,  poodle,  one  of  us  two  has  to 
leave  this  room.'  What,  then,  is  the  whole  content  of  this  con- 
viction, which,  so  long  as  there  was  the  hope  of  a  possibility  of  a 
worthy  object  for  our  aspirations,  seemed  so  despicable  ?  What  is 
it  that  governs  the  practical  world  of  finite  motives,  the  power  that 
adapts  means  to  ends,  regardless  of  a  final,  of  an  infinite  end  ?  Is 
it  not  the  Understanding  ?  and  although  Reason  —  in  its  search 
after  the  final  end,  with  its  perfect  system  of  absolute  means,  of  in- 
finite motives  and  interests  —  begets  subjective  chimeras,  is  it  not 
demonstrated  that  the  understanding  possesses  objective  validity  ? 
Nay,  look  upon  this  dog  well  •  does  it  not  swell  into  colossal  pro- 
portions?—  is  no  dog  at  all,  in  fact,  but  the  very  power  that  holds 
absolute  sway  over  the  finite  and  negative,  —  the  understanding 
itself,  —  Mephistopheles  in  proper  form. "     Letters  on  Faust,  V. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  403 

dog  into  a  devil.  Out  of  the  poodle  comes  Mepliis- 
topheles,  and  Faust  forswears  all  aspirations  for  divine 
things,  making  a  compact  to  renounce  them,  provided 
he  can  be  sated  with  earthly  pleasure. 

The  exorcism  of  the  demon  uses  the  magic  formulse, 
but  with  a  subtle  reference  to  an  underlying  kernel 
of  meaning.  The  spirit  is  not  one  of  earth  {Incubus 
or  Kobold),  air  {Sylph),  fire  {Salamander),  or  water 
{Undine) ;  it  does  not  belong  to  nature  at  all,  in  fact, 
but  to  spirit.  It  is  the  intellect  used  simply  for  itself 
and  against  all  else,  and  is  therefore  "the  spirit  that 
denies."  The  sign  that  exorcises  is  the  name  of  the 
"  vilely  transpierced  "  One,  —  the  Divine  Being  who 
took  upon  himself  the  sins  and  punishment  of  others, 
and  gave  the  infinite  exemplar  of  unselfishness.  This 
renunciation  for  the  sake  of  others  is  the  test  that 
reveals  the  character  of  any  form  of  sinful  nature. 
Mephistopheles  believes  that  all  that  is  ought  to  be 
destroyed.  In  this  respect  he  partakes  of  the  na- 
ture of  the  formless  god  of  Pantheism.  All  forms 
arise  out  of  Substance  by  negation,  and  all  return 
into  the  formless  substance  by  means  of  a  second 
negation. 

All  form  is  Maya,  or  illusion,  says  the  Hindoo. 
But  Mephistopheles  is  not  generally  so  abstract  in  his 
views  as  he  expresses  himself  on  his  first  appearance 
to  Faust.  He  usually  "  opposes  his  cold  devil's  fist, 
clenched  in  impotent  malice  against  the  beneficent 
creating  power,"  as  Faust  is  made  to  suggest.  While 
the  Creative  Word  delights  in  nursing  into  being  the 


404  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

myriad  farms  of  nature,  and  in  drawing  them  up  by 
evolution  into  liuman  beings,  His  image,  with  whom 
to  share  his  blessedness,  Mephistopheles,  on  the  con- 
trary, inspired  by  a  spirit  of  envy  which  is  the  an- 
tithesis of  this  divine  altruism,  wishes  to  beat  back 
into  chaos  all  that  has  come  into  being.  He  wishes 
to  share  with  no  one  else,  and  hence  realizes  the 
ideal  of  pure  selfishness. 

In  the  compact  made  with  Mephistopheles  in  the 
following  scene,  the  stipulations  are  such  that  Faust 
is  certain  to  escape,  if  he  retains  any  aspiration.  If 
the  delights  of  the  senses  can  please  him  to  satiety, 
of  course  he  has  lost  his  soul  to  the  Evil  One.  "  If 
ever  I  stretch  myself  in  quiet  on  a  bed  of  ease,  if  thou 
canst  cheat  me  with  enjoyment,  be  that  day  my  last. 
...  If  ever  I  say  to  the  passing  moment,  '  Stay,  for 
thou  art  fair,'  then  mayest  thou  cast  me  into  chains." 
But  in  his  quest  of  happiness  that  does  not  turn  into 
pain,  he  will  pass  entirely  out  of  the  realm  of  pleas- 
ures of  appetite  and  passion,  and  come  to  those  of 
ambition  and  power;  these  he  will  pass  by  to  the 
pleasures  of  culture  in  art  and  literature,  which  he 
will  desert  for  the  final  happiness  of  laboring  for 
the  good  of  his  fellow  men.  Arrived  at  altruism,  he 
has  arrived  at  what  is  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
nature  of  the  demon  with  whom  he  has  made  a  com- 
pact. Mephistopheles  must  satisfy  him,  then,  by  giv- 
ing him  such  happiness  as  heaven  affords,  —  that  is 
to  say,  the  happiness  reached  through  unselfish  devo- 
tion to  others.     This  fiend  must  serve  him,  therefore, 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  405 

and  assist  him  in  his  benevolent  undertakings,  until 
he  wellnigh  destroys  his  own  diabolic  character. 

The  compact  signed,  the  next  question  is  how  to 
enjoy  himself.  laust's  good  impulses  would  lead  "him 
to  share  the  pain  and  pleasure  of  humanity,  and  thus 
widen  his  own  life  by  adding  to  it  the  life  of  the  race. 
But  his  selfishness,  incarnated  in  Mephistopheles,  at 
once  rebukes  him,  and  exhorts  him  to  the  use  of  all 
as  a  means  of  his  pleasure.^  He  despises  all  theories, 
all  rellections  on  the  regulative  principles  of  human 
conduct,  and "  wishes  Faust  to  give  them  up.  Tlie 
gibes  of  Mephistopheles  against  philosophy  and  school 
learning  are  taken  in  good  faith  as  Goethe's  best  wis- 
dom by  many  readers.     This  adoption  of  the  code  of 

1  "  'Away  with  this  striving  after  the  impossible  !  What  though 
your  body  is  your  own,  is  that  which  I  enjoy  less  mine  ?  If  I  can 
pay  for  six  brave  steeds,  are  they  not  mine,  with  all  their  power  ? 
I  run  as  if  on  four  and  twenty  legs,  and  am  held  to  be  of  some  con- 
sequence. Away,  therefore  :  leave  off  your  cogitating,  —  away  into 
the  world  !  I  tell  you,  a  man  who  speculates  is  like  a  brute  led  by 
evil  genii  in  circles  round  and  round  upon  a  withered  heath,  while 
close  at  hand  smile  beauteous  pastures  green.  Just  look  at  this 
place.  Call  you  this  living,  —  to  plague  yourself  and  the  poor  boys 
to  death  with  ennui  ?  Leave  that  to  your  good  neighbor,  the  worthy 
Mr.  Bookworm.  Why  should  you  worry  yourself  threshing  such 
straw  ? '  The  extraordinary  good  sense  of  this  advice  is  so  apparent, 
that  it  cannot  be  without  some  immediate  effect,  which  we  perceive 
in  the  scene  where  the  different  studies  are  reviewed  by  the  aid  of 
its  radiance  concentrated  mto 

'  AH  theory,  my  friend,  is  gray, 
But  green  the  golden  tree  of  life,' 

as  the  focal  point.     With  this  final  adieu  to  the  past,  we  congratu- 
late ourselves  upon  the  '  new  career  '  !  "     Letters  on  Faust,  VL 


406  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

the  Evil  One  is  itself  quite  as  comical  as  anything  in 
the  wit  of  Mephistopheles.  Goethe  of  course  recog- 
nized this  in  its  fulness  ;  for  he  makes  Mephistopheles 
soliloquize  after  the  departure  of  Faust :  "  Only  let 
him  despise  reason  and  science,  the  highest  strength 
that  man  possesses,  and  even  if  he  had  not  contracted 
himself  to  the  Devil  he  would  notwithstanding  go  to 
destruction." 

The  scene  with  the  Student  emphasizes  the  Mephis- 
tophelian  view  of  school  education.  It  satirizes  logic 
and  grammar,  chemistry  and  anatomy,  philosophy  and 
jurisprudence,  theology  and  medicine,  suggesting  sens- 
uality as  the  proper  substitute  for  earnest  pursuit  of 
art  and  science.  That  Goethe  himself  passed  through 
all  these  stages  of  Mephistophelic  opinion  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  He  was  a  Titan  when  at  college  in 
Leipzig.  He  attacked  institutions  again  and  again 
in  his  early  life.  But  he  outgrew  this  spirit  of  revolt 
by  degrees.  The  French  Eevolution  is  the  great  out- 
ward event  that  had  its  reflection  in  the  souls  of  the 
brilliant  youth  of  that  epoch.  Goethe  records  his 
final  verdict  on  that  frame  of  mind  by  putting  its 
favorite  expressions  into  the  mouth  of  Mephistopheles. 
In  the  passage  of  his  Autobiography  above  referred  to, 
(Book  VIII.  p.  300,  Bohn's  Translation,)  we  can  see 
how  he  had  surmounted  his  own  speculative  doubts 
of  the  warranty  of  civilization  by  the  study  of  Neo- 
Platonism  and  Mysticism,  very  soon  after  his  return 
from  Leipzig  and  before  he  conceived  his  Faust.  It 
must  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  very  general  and 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  407 

abstract  character  of  his  conviction  rendered  necessary 
a  lon<T  time  to  leaven  the  concrete  details  of  his  view 
of  life.  In  the  course  of  his  great  literary  work  of 
art,  we  are  given  to  understand  his  final  classification 
of  all  mental  attitudes  towards  the  world. 

All  being  ready,  Faust's  companion  spreads  the 
mantle  ^  with  proper  care,  and  they  are  off  on  their 
journey. 

Now  the  question  arises,  What  shall  be  the  con- 
tent of  the  first  scene  in  which  this  new  conviction 
of  Faust  is  to  be  realized  ?  Obvious  enough,  —  the 
Easter  morning,  with  its  crowds  of  people  going  gayly 
forth  to  enjoy  their  holiday,  will  suggest  idleness,  and 
"  loafing,"  as  it  is  called,  which,  however,  cannot  be 
endured  in  solitude.  There  must  be  idle  company  to 
make  idleness  palatable.  But  an  idle  company  are 
not  able  to  enjoy  their  leisure  purely  for  itself;  they 
must  forget  themselves  by  telling  amusing  stories. 
But  really  artistic  talent  cannot  be  displayed  without 
labor;  the  easiest  wit  is  that  lowest  species  which 
deals  in  profanity  and  obscenity.  Hence  we  have 
scurrilous  songs  full  of  scandal.  The  choicest  morsel 
for  the  idler  is  scandal  relating  to  the  established 
order  of  things,  —  the  government,  the  Church,  the 
industries  of  the  community,  the  morals  of  those  in 

1  "  'What  about  the  immediate  start,  conveyance,  etc.  ?'  Well, 
I  suppose  Faust  is  not  the  only  one  that  has  travelled  on  the 
quality  of  his  cloth  !  '  To  fly  through  the  air  on  Mephisto's  cloak,' 
sounds  very  poetic,  but  to  pass  in  society  upon  the  strength  of  ap- 
pearance is  such  an  every-day  occurrence  that  it  is  quite  prosaic." 
Letters  on  Faust,  VI. 


408  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

power.  But  this  does  not  suffice  to  dissipate  the 
ennui  of  such  a  company.  There  is  no  recourse  but 
to  benumb  consciousness  by  strong  drink  ;  this  alone 
is  effective,  for  it  loosens  the  hold  of  the  senses  on 
reality,  and  substitutes  a  world  of  illusion  :  "  False 
form  and  word  !  change  sense  and  place  !  be  here,  be 
there  ! "  Each  one  sees  a  beautiful  country,  with 
vineyards  and  grapes  close  at  hand,  and  when  error 
looses  the  bandage  from  their  eyes  they  find  them- 
selves in  the  attitude  of  deadly  quarrel,  with  knives 
drawn.  This  is  truly  "  a  devil's  mode  of  jesting,"  and 
it  does  not  seem  to  possess  any  attractions  for  Faust.^ 
The  next  scene  brings  Faust  to  the  Witches' 
Kitchen,   whose   contents  are  represented   symboli- 

1  "  We  witness   a  peculiar  social  phenomenon  in  Auerbach's 
Cellar,  where  we  have  arrived  in  time  to  find  our  hero  joining  in 

the  chorus 

'  We  are  as  happy  as  cannibals. 

Nay,  as  fiv£  hundred  hogs,"  — 

or,  if  not  our  hero,  Mephisto  for  him,  —  for  you  will  notice  that 
Faust  says  only,  '  Good  evening,  gentlemen,'  and  '  I  should  like 
to  leave  now,'  during  the  whole  scene, — the  very  leader  of  the 
crowd  in  wit,  song,  and  wine.  Nay,  as  to  the  latter,  he  cannot  re- 
frain from  giving  them  a  little  touch  of  his  chemical  science,  which 
can  dispense  with  the  old  grape-wine  process,  and  still  give  perfect 
satisfaction  to  his  customers,  —  a  fact  of  some  importance,  one  would 
suppose,  to  the  landlord.  And  thus  it  would  appear  that  our  hero 
is  not  left  to  trust  entirely  to  the  quality  of  his  cloth  for  the  practi- 
cal wherewithal.  But  the  little  '  Feuer-luft,'  which  one  would  at 
first  have  been  inclined  to  interpret  Fame,  resolves  itself  into  '  fire- 
water,' or  rather  the  art  to  make  this,  to  work  the  miracle  of  the 
wedding  feast  at  Galilee  on  the  principles  of  natural  science." 
Letters  on  Faust,  VII. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  409 

cally,  as  being  too  gross,  or  else  too  complex  and  prosy, 
for  literal  description.  It  would  seem  that  the  next 
experiment  after  the  idler's  holiday  would  be  the 
attempt  to  find  happiness  in  fashionable  society. 
Isolate  this  phase  of  life,  and  make  it  the  supreme 
object  for  man,  and  is  it  any  more  than  a  witches' 
kitchen  ?  Its  ball-rooms,  late  suppers,  empty  talk, 
and  the  catering  for  it  with  food  and  drink  less 
adapted  to  satisfy  hunger  than  to  inflame  passion,  the 
clothing  that  does  not  clothe,  the  cosmetics  and  other 
means  to  manufacture  forms  of  youth  and  beauty  out  of 
ugliness,  —  all  these  seem  to  be  typified.  But  there  is 
also  gaming  with  dice,  lotteries,  fortune-telling,  and  the 
getting  of  riches  by  chance,  —  which  also  very  accu- 
rately characterizes  the  frame  of  mind  which  lives  for 
the  world  of  mere  fashion  and  appearance.  The  same 
principle  carried  into  literature  is  satirized  by  putting 
it  into  the  mouths  of  the  apes :  "  We  speak  and  we 
see ;  we  hear  and  we  rhyme ;  and  if  we  are  lucky, 
and  if  things  fit,  't  is  thoughts,  and  we  're  thinking." 
Close  in  sequence,  after  games  of  chance  and  lotteries, 
follow  peculation  and  forgeries  by  aid  of  the  witches* 
multiplication-table,  which  can,  when  necessary, 

"  Of  one  make  ten, 
And  two  let  be, 
And  three  make  even,  —  then  art  thou  rich." 

"  The  high  power  of  science  hidden  from  all  comes 
to  him  who  thinks  not,"  says  the  witch  who  presides 
over  the  kitchen.  Here  too  Faust  sees  in  the  magic 
mirror  of  fashion  beautiful  forms  ;  but  if  he  approaches 


410  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

too  near,  lie  perceives  that  they  are  manufactured  (by 
the  milliner  ?).  The  potation  brewed  in  this  kitchen 
seems  to  be  a  species  of  philter,  a  sort  of  "  beggars' 
broth,"  which  inflames  the  sensual  passions. 

All  this  pleases  Faust  no  better  than  the  wine 
cellar.  He  thinks  the  fashionable  apes  and  their 
conversation  "  the  most  disgusting  I  ever  saw,"  and 
"  thoroughly  abominates  the  absurd  apparatus,  these 
frantic  gestures,  and  repulsive  cheats,"  and  his  head 
splits  at  the  nonsense  as  of  a  "  hundred  idiots  declaim- 
in<i  in  full  chorus."  ^ 

Now  commences  the  Margaret  episode.     From  the 

1  The  "Letters  on  Faust"  present  a  different  interpretation  of 
this  scene  ;  hut  I  prefer  to  follow  an  interpretation  given  by  their 
author  in  an  earlier  course  of  lectures.  The  following  remarks  also, 
from  Letter  VIII.,  contain  hints  that  point  in  the  direction  I  have 
followed  :  "  Owing  to  the  age  of  the  man,  and  the  practical  incon- 
venience he  may  experience  therefrom  in  his  new  career, 

'  For  idle  dalliance  too  old, 
Too  young  to  be  without  desire,' 

he  would  find  it,  no  doubt,  convenient  to  decrease  the  one  and  in- 
crease the  other.  For  in  this  new  career,  the  strength  and  number 
of  his  desires  are  an  essential  element,  especially  when  there  is  every 
prospect  of  ample  means  for  their  gratification.  As  regards  external 
appearance,  that  can  readily  be  managed  by  a  judicious  use  of  cos- 
metics, the  tailor's  art,  and  kindred  appliances.  But  the  physical 
desires,  the  sexual  passions,  for  example,  require  youth  to  yield  full 
fruition.  Proper  culture,  however,  not  to  mention  aphrodisiacs,  will 
do  much,  even  iu  this  direction."  Other  commentators  seem  to 
prefer  the  interpretation  given  in  the  "  Letters  on  Faust."  A.  Wy- 
sard  (London,  1883,  The  Intellectual  and  Moral  Problem  of  Goethe  s 
Faust),  for  example,  says  :  "  Mephisto  takes  him  to  the  Witches' 
Kitchen,  that  is  to  say,  to  those  places  of  vulgar  sin  where  the  mystery 
of  love  is  prostituted  to  the  service  of  degrading  voluptuousness, "  etc. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  411 

drinking  saloon  and  the  life  of  fashion,  the  drama  pro- 
ceeds to  the  institution  of  the  family,  realized  in  the 
persons  of  Margaret,  her  mother,  and  her  brother. 
Hitherto  we  have  had  no  tragedy,  but  only  a  strug- 
gle within  tlie  mind  of  Faust.  His  conviction  has 
taken  the  shape  embodied  by  Mephistopheles,  and  in 
a  few  short,  swift  scenes  we  are  plunged  into  a  terrible 
collision  with  the  external  world.  First  in  order  are 
the  scenes  which  show  us  the  meeting  of  Margaret 
just  coming  from  the  cathedral ;  then  her  room  and 
the  casket ;  the  promenade,  and  Faust  in  love  ;  the 
neighbor's  house  and  the  craft  of  Mephistopheles; 
the  street  scene  and  the  resolution  taken  ;  the  garden 
scene  and  the  garden  arbor.  Then  comes  the  scene 
called  "  Forest  and  Cavern,"  wherein  Goethe  has 
painted  a  powerful  reaction  in  the  soul  of  Faust. 
His  emotional  nature  revolts  against  the  evil  influence 
that  drags  him  onwards,  and  he  tries  by  absence  to 
subdue  his  lawless  passion.  Under  the  temporary 
influence  of  a  pure  love,  he  finds  himself  likewise 
in  harmony  with  creation  once  more,  and  he  recog- 
nizes his  "  brothers  in  the  still  wood,  the  air,  the 
water." 

But  Mephistopheles  finally  overcomes  his  virtuous 
scruples  by  suggesting  the  picture  of  Margaret  pining 
away  with  longing  for  him,  —  a  picture  realized  in 
the  next  scene,  in  Margaret's  room,  where  we  hear 
her  sing,  "  My  peace  is  gone,"  — expressing  the  fatal 
attraction  which  draws  her  like  a  night-moth  into 
the  flame. 


412  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

In  Martha's  garden  we  see  them  after  Faust's  re- 
turn. Margaret  is  anxious  in  regard  to  his  religion. 
Faust  parries  her  questions  with  a  series  of  answers 
drawn  from  his  pantheistical  system  of  thought, 
M.  "  Do  yoLi  believe  in  God  ? "  F.  "  Who  would  dare 
to  answer  yes  or  no  to  such  a  question  ?  The  world 
exists,  and  the  heavens  ;  a  vast  correlated  system  of 
energies  is  alike  revealed  and  hidden  by  these  phe- 
nomena, which  we  see  and  which  we  are.  For  we  are 
products  of  nature  and  moved  irresistibly  by  its  ulti- 
mate force.  Call  this  immediate  feeling  of  love,  which 
moves  thee  and  me,  God,  love,  heart,  or  bliss,  —  it  is 
all  one.  I  have  no  name  for  it.  It  is  the  all- 
embracing  and  sustaining  unity  of  the  universe  which 
takes  on  these  myriad  forms,  but  is  above  and  beyond 
them  all.  Feeling  is  all  in  all.  Hence  let  us  yield 
to  it."  Poor  Margaret  is  confused  by  the  technical 
expressions  of  philosophy,  to  which  she  is  not  accus- 
tomed. She  admits  that  it  is  all  fine  and  good,  like 
the  words  of  the  priest,  but  for  all  that  there  is  some- 
thing wrong  about  it,  for  it  lacks  Christianity.  She 
means  to  express  by  this  her  knowledge  that  the 
Church  condemns  it  all.  She  has  seen  that  Faust 
does  not  honor  the  holy  sacraments,  or  at  least  does 
not  desire  any  participation  in  them.  Faust  thinks 
himself  an  "  advanced  liberal "  who  is  willing  that 
each  should  have  his  own  belief.  The  spirit  of  the 
Macrocosm  is  void  of  all  form,  and  hence  is  neither 
personalty  nor  any  physical  force,  but  indifferent  to 
all  existing  things,  and  also  indifferent  to  all  moral 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  413 

distinctions  and  religious  ordinances.  It  is  in  com- 
plete harmony  with  the  collision  which  produces  the 
entire  movement  of  the  drama  that  Faust  shall  put 
forward  these  agnostic  arguments  to  overcome  the  re- 
ligious scruples  of  Margaret.  A  God  so  transcendent 
as  to  be  indifferent  to  all  distinctions  cannot  be  known 
as  to  his  will  and  purposes ;  but  through  our  feeling 
we  may  know  Him  in  the  form  of  immediate  impulse. 
"  Obey  impulse  and  leave  the  talk  about  divine  com- 
mandments to  dishonest  priests."  The  conclusion  is 
forthcoming :  "  You  see  this  vial  ?  only  three  drops 
in  your  mother's  drink  will  envelop  her  in  a  deep 
but  pleasant  sleep." 

In  view  of  this  obvious  interpretation  of  the  scene, 
we  are  filled  with  amazement  at  the  opinion  of  Mr. 
Lewes,  that  "  grander,  deeper,  holier  thoughts  are  not 
to  be  found  in  poetry  "  !  But  what  shall  we  say  to 
those  who  insist  that  this  passage  expresses  "  Goethe's 
creed "  ?  When  Goethe  called  himself  a  polytheist 
as  poet  and  artist,  a  pantheist  as  a  student  of  nature, 
and  a  theist  in  his  moral  and  spiritual  nature,  it  is 
easy  to  understand  how  these  seemingly  contradictory 
predicates  are  harmonized.  As  a  poet,  all  nature  is 
personified,  and  is  full  of  correspondences  to  the  soul. 
The  poet  animates  and  personifies  objects  direct,  and 
is  essentially  on  the  standpoint  of  Homer  and  the 
ancient  polytheism.  Again,  in  natural  science  rela- 
tivity becomes  the  chief  category,  and  every  object  is 
traced  out  into  some  previous  condition  by  its  relations 
and  processes.     This  interrelation  points  towards  an 


414  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

ultimate  unity  of  all,  indifferent  to  particular  forms, 
but  itself  a  persistent  energy.  Here  is  a  pantheistic 
standpoint.  But  the  necessity  of  self-activity  in  the 
ultimate  energy  brings  before  us  the  duplicate  unity 
which  we  have  in  self-conscious  being,  and  so  we  re- 
turn from  Pantheism  to  Theism  even  in  the  science  of 
nature.  Therefore  Goethe  in  his  letter  to  Jacobi  ad- 
mits that  he  "  needs  a  personal  God  for  his  personal 
nature  as  a  moral  and  spiritual  man."  But  if  any 
evidence  is  sought  for  Goethe's  ripest  convictions,  it 
must  be  found  in  his  greatest  and  maturest  work,  the 
"  Faust."  This  scene  should  convince  us  that  Goethe 
did  not  esteem  highly  any  religion  founded  on  the 
indifferent  supreme  being  of  Pantheism.^ 

1  I  give  in  this  view  substantially  Mr.  Brockmeyer's  interpreta- 
tion of  the  significance  of  Faust's  creed,  as  I  remember  it  in  his 
lectures  ;  it  is  not  given  in  his  "  Letters."  The  following  quotations 
from  the  latter  are  in  place  here. 

"This  young  woman,  clad  in  purity  and  faith,  is  met  at  the 
temple  of  the  living  God,  at  once  the  primary  source  and  the  still 
existing  refuge  of  the  sacredness  of  the  family  relation.  The  severely 
realistic  character  of  Gretchen,  therefore,  is  determined  by  the 
theme  ;  and  the  scene  where  she  relates  her  daily  occupations  of 
cooking,  washing,  sweeping,  etc.,  besides  the  exquisite  motive  which 
the  poet  employs  to  transfigure  its  prosaic  commonplace,  ought  not 
to  be  wanting."      Letters  on  Faust,  IX. 

"  That  the  family  relation  is  impossible  under  the  conviction  of 
Faust,  or  that  an  existing  family  should  be  destroyed  (the  mother 
poisoned,  the  child  drowned,  the  brother  slain,  and  the  sister  stand 
before  the  judgment-seat  of  God  as  the  self- acknowledged  author, 
cause,  or  whatever  name  you  may  give  to  the  connection  which  she 
had  with  these  effects),  by  a  man's  giving  practical  eflfect  to  the  con- 
victions of  Faust,  is  acknowledged  and  realized  by  the  general  con- 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  415 

The  scene  at  the  Fountain  reflects  in  a  "  severely 
realistic  "  form  the  popular  ethical  sense  before  which 
Margaret's  conscience  now  condemns  her.  The  scenes 
increase  in  tragic  earnestness.  At  the  shrine  of  the 
Mater  Dolorosa  she  appeals  for  rescue  from  shame 
and  death.  In  the  night  scene  we  see  the  reflection 
of  the  deed  of  Faust  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
brother  of  Margaret.  Valentine  attacks  the  serenaders 
and  is  slain.  Faust  and  Mephistopheles  flee  from  the 
country,  and  we  may  suppose  they  go  to  scenes  of 
dissipation  in  the  great  city  where  we  meet  them  on 
Walpurgis  Night.  The  Cathedral  scene  follows.  Is 
Margaret  at  the  funeral  of  her  murdered  brother,  or 
rather,  perhaps,  of  her  mother  ?  The  critics  find  diffi- 
culties in  either  case.  Valentine  in  his  soliloquy  made 
no  allusion  to  his  mother.  The  fact  that  the  accusing 
spirit  asks,  "  Pray'st  thou  for  thy  mother's  soul  ? "  seems 
to  intimate  that  it  is  her  funeral.  The  Dies  Irce.  is 
sung  as  the  "  Sequence  for  the  Dead"  in  the  Catholic 
burial  service.  This  fact  makes  one  of  the  two  con- 
tingencies probable.  But  it  was  more  poetical  to  leave 
this  matter  a  mere  suggestion.  It  increases  our  horror 
to  remember  that,  when  we  saw  Margaret  coming 
from  the  cathedral  on  a  former  occasion,  she  was  "  so 
innocent  that  she  had  nothing  to  confess."  The  evil 
spirit  {Boser  Geist),  or  the  accusing  spirit,  personifying 
Conscience,  suggests  the  contrast  to  Margaret :  "  How 

sciousness  of  the  age,  as  is  abundantly  proved  by  the  effect  which 
the  part  of  tlie  work  under  consideration  has  produced."  Letters 
on  Faust,  IX. 


416  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

different  was  it  with  thee,"  etc.  When  the  organ 
peals  and  the  Chorus  sings,  the  accusing  spirit  con- 
tinues to  comment  on  the  verses  of  the  judgment 
hymn.  The  first,  sixth,  and  seventh  verses  are  given 
in  the  text.  The  spirit,  however,  translates  the  sub- 
stance of  the  second  ("  Horror  seizes  thee ! "),  third 
("  The  trumpet  sounds  !  the  graves  tremble  ! "),  and 
fourth  ("  Thy  heart  from  its  ashes  flames  up  again  in 
torment ").  The  fifth  verse  has  the  same  content  as 
the  sixth,  and  the  accuser  echoes  the  sense  of  both : 
"  Hide  thyself !  Sin  and  shame  never  remain  con- 
cealed. Air  ?  Light  ?  Woe  to  thee  ! "  Then  at  the 
seventh  verse,  which  brings  to  a  climax  the  helpless- 
ness of  the  siimer,  the  spirit  reminds  her  that  she  can 
claim  no  advocate  on  that  day  when  the  just  are 
scarcely  sure  of  their  defence :  "  The  glorified  turn 
their  faces  from  thee  ;  the  pure  ones  shudder  to  offer 
thee  their  hands.  Woe  !  "  The  situation  represented 
here  is  subHme  and  terrible  beyond  all  others  in  this 
drama.^ 

Here  is  the  finite  before  the  infinite,  the  innocent 
led  astray  into  crime  and  sin,  and  brought  before  the 
last  tribunal.  A  full  consciousness  of  this  judgment 
takes  possession  of  Margaret  while  her  reason  is  yet 
unshaken,  though  her  soul  has  been  tried  by  suc- 
cessive shocks.  The  pathos  of  the  scene  reaches  its 
highest  point  through  the  fact  that  the  trial  and  con- 
demnation are  wholly  unseen  by  the  world.     An  ex- 

l  Mr.  Brockmeyer  pronounces  it  the  most  tragic  scene  in  all 
literature,  for  the  reasons  stated. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  417 

ternal  trial  before  her  fellow  men  could  not  be  so 
terrible  as  this  judgment  by  her  accusing  conscience 
while  the  holy  Chorus  announces  the  eternal  edicts. 
The  spectator  would  cry  out  at  once  against  any  ex- 
ternal court  that  condemned  so  dreadfully  the  victim 
of  fiendish  conspiracy.  It  is  she  alone  who  can  im- 
agine that  the  spirits  of  light  avert  their  faces  and 
refuse  their  helping  hands.  The  closing  scene  of  the 
Second  Part  of  Faust  shows  us  the  counterpart  to  this 
scene  in  the  cathedral. 

From  this  scene  before  the  heavenly  judgment  we 
descend  in  the  following  to  the  region  of  hell.  Faust 
and  Mephistopheles  have  fled  from  justice,  and  we 
are  to  seek  them,  —  perhaps  in  Paris  at  some  Jardin 
Mabille,  —  certainly  this  is  the  type  described  in  the 
Walpurgis  Night.  In  the  celebration  on  the  Brocken 
are  to  be  found  all  manner  of  correspondences  with 
what  is  infernal  in  human  character.  Spiritual  jays, 
owls,  mice,  fireflies,  will-o'-the-wisps,  vermin,  all  as- 
semble with  the  witches  on  the  wild  desert  at  the 
top  of  the  Brocken.  It  is  a  realm  beyond  the  border, 
hence  the  place  of  outlaws,  the  criminal  realm.  Hu- 
man savagery  celebrates  its  Witches'  Sabbath  on  this 
mountain  top,  lighted  up,  as  is  well  known,  by  Mam- 
mon. For  Mammon  is  wealth  used  in  sensuality  and 
other  selfish  pleasure.  A  spiritual  storm  rages  there, 
the  elements  all  in  collision. 

Sitting  around  dying  embers  at  the  outskirts  of  the 
crowd,  Mephistopheles  comes  up  with  the  sore-heads.  <- 
These  are  they  who  have  lived  for  selfish  pleasure, 

27 


418  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

and  now  retain  their  passions  and  ambition,  but  have 
worn  out  their  capacity  for  enjoyment.  They  con- 
sider themselves  most  unjustly  treated  by  the  world. 
A  general  thinks  his  nation  ungrateful  for  his  ser- 
vices ;  a  minister  thinks  that  all  things  go  badly 
since  he  left  the  cabinet ;  an  unsuccessful  author 
complains  that  people  do  not  read  sensible  works 
any  longer.  Mephistopheles  mocks  them  all :  "  Since 
my  own  cask  has  run  down  to  the  lees,  I  feel  that  the 
world  also  is  near  its  end."  Then  Lilith  and  the  ob- 
scene witches.  But  in  the  midst  of  dissipation  Faust 
thinks  of  Margaret,  and  is  haunted  by  the  sight  of 
a  "  pale,  fair  girl,  standing  alone  and  far  off."  "  She 
drags  herself  but  slowly  from  the  place,  and  seems  to 
move  with  fettered  feet.  I  must  own  she  seems  to 
me  to  resemble  poor  Margaret.  .  .  .  How  strangely 
does  a  single  red  line,  no  thicker  than  a  knife,  adorn 
that  lovely  neck  ! "  Taust  does  not  wait  for  the  Inter- 
mezzo, —  a  "  new  performance  "  that  is  given  on  the 
Brocken.  It  is  the  counterpart  of  the  Prelude  on  the 
stage,  and  shows  us  the  Walpurgis  Night  in  literature. 
The  spirit  of  Mephistopheles  is  portrayed  in  its  xa- 
rious  literary  incarnations.  The  plot  is  the  quarrel 
between  the  two  ideals  in  art  typified  by  Oberon  and 
Titania.  Art  is  either  for  the  revelation  of  the  divine, 
or  for  amusement  and  to  make  a  living. 

Faust  learns  the  fate  of  Margaret,  "  long  wretch- 
edly astray  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  now  im- 
prisoned and  under  sentence  of  death."  A  reaction 
sets  in,  which  Mephistopheles  is  not  able  to  meet,  as 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  419 

before,  on  the  scene  of  the  "  Dreary  Day."  The  in- 
dignant reply  of  Faust  to  Mephistopheles's  "  She  is 
not  the  first,"  is  annihilating  in  its  force.  They  pass 
through  the  "  open  field,"  where  the  gibbet  stands,  to 
the  dungeon.  Margaret  is  discovered  insane.  In  her 
ravings  she  lives  over  again  the  tragic  moments  of 
her  history,  and  anticipates  in  her  fantasy  the  scene 
of  the  execution,  which  forms  the  climax.  But  even 
in  the  presence  of  the  scaffold  she  repels  all  offers  of 
succor  from  the  conspirator  against  her  peace.  She 
exclaims  on  seeing  Mephistopheles  :  "  What  rises  up 
from  the  threshold  there  ?  He  !  He  !  Send  him 
away  !  What  does  he  want  in  this  holy  place  ?  He 
seeks  me."  She  appeals  to  the  judgment  of  God 
against  the  fiend.  To  be  saved  from  the  gallows  and 
from  God's  judgment  by  the  interposition  of  the  Evil 
One  is  to  be  lost  forever.  She  prefers  the  solemn 
human  ceremony  that  deprives  her  of  life,  to  the  life 
of  an  outcast.  Goethe  expresses  this  sense  of  the 
substantial  nature  of  social  life  in  institutions,  as  con- 
trasted with  mere  individual  life,  in  Margaret's  reply 
to  Faust's  "  Only  consent !  the  door  lies  open "  : 
"What  avails  it  flying?  They  will  waylay  me!  It 
is  so  miserable  to  be  obliged  to  beg  one's  living, 
and  with  a  bad  conscience  too.  How  wretched  to 
wander  in  a  foreign  land,  and  after  all  be  rearrested  ! " 
The  very  thought  drives  her  into  her  ravings  again. 

At  her  refusal  to  be  rescued,  Mephistopheles  pro- 
nounces the  words,  "  She  is  judged,"  meaning  that  she 
has  preferred  to  accept  the  fate  decreed  by  the  court. 


420  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 


\ 


But  a  voice  from  above  says,  "  She  is  saved."  As 
Faust  hastens  out  of  the  dungeon,  he  hears  the  voice 
of  Margaret  calling  his  name.  The  voice  comes 
fainter  and  fainter  to  his  ears  as  his  distance  in- 
creases. He  joins  Mephistopheles  and  "  disappears." 
The  First  Part  of  Faust  thus  ends  negatively.  It  is 
deeply  tragic,  but  not  in  the  usual  manner.  It  is  not 
the  hero's  death  that  we  see.  He  does  not  collide  with 
institutions  and  go  down.  His  innocent  victim  is  the 
^  one  who  suffers,  and  the  guilty  one  escapes.  In  this 
defect  we  see  the  necessity  for  a  Second  Part.  The 
old  miracle  play,  like  the  Don  Juan  epos,  makes  the 
hero  meet  his  doom  in  hell  flames.  But  Goethe  pre- 
serves Faust  in  order  to  treat  the  theme  exhaustively, 
and  finally  solve  it  affirmatively.  Thus  far  we  have 
had  a  subjective  conflict  within  Faust's  mind,  and  an 
objective  conflict  with  a  single  institution,  the  family. 
Faust's  practical  resolution  to  make  the  world  his 
oyster  has  not  resulted  in  happiness.  On  the  con- 
trary, when  Margaret  paints  the  last  scene  at  the 
block,  Faust  says,  "  Oh  that  I  had  never  been  born  ! " 
His  emotional  nature,  the  very  part  of  him  that 
hungers  for  the  pleasure  of  gratification,  evidently 
is  not  constituted  so  as  to  adapt  itself  to  the  theory 
of  Mephistopheles.  He  cannot  be  made  happy  by 
unscrupulous  selfishness  that  heeds  not  another's 
pain.i 

1  "As  the  result  of  the  suhjective  collision,  we  had  the  conclu- 
sion, that,  if  man  cannot  know  truth ,  he  can  enjoy  sensual  pleasure. 
Taking  this  for  the  principle  of  our  action,  we  entered  the  world  of 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  421 

Many  persons  affect  to  admire  the  first  part  of 
Faust  who  do  not  find  any  necessity  for  the  second 
part.  They  do  not  duly  consider  that  the  first  part 
by  itself  is  a  monstrosity,  judged  by  the  standard  of 
works  of  art.  What  drama  or  what  novel  would  al- 
low its  hero  to  destroy  an  entire  family  of  innocent 
people,  and  yet  escape  due  punishment  at  the  hand 
of  his  fellow  men  ?  Even  the  puppet  play  was  care- 
ful to  punish  Faust  in  the  fires  of  hell ;  but  Goethe's 
Faust,  in  its  first  part,  does  not  show  us  the  hand  of 
society  avenging  itself  on  the  true  criminal,  nor  does 
it,  on  the  other  hand,  show  the  conditions  of  the  com- 
pact with  Mephistopheles  fulfilled,  so  that  the  soul 
'  of  Faust  is  in  danger  of  forfeiture. 

With  all  these  crimes,  Faust  has  not  found  his  mo- 
ment of  happiness  which  he  can  bid  "  Stay,  for  thou 
art  fair."  Mephistopheles  cannot  claim  him,  for  he 
has  not  gratified  him  with  sensual  delight,  according 
to  the  terms  of  the  bond.  Faust's  soul  has  not  be- 
come wholly  devilish,  because  he  has  wished  to  save 
Margaret  from  her  fate,  and,  failing  in  that,  is  plunged 
in  deep  remorse.  Eeraorse,  it  is  true,  is  not  the  pun- 
ishment required  by  a  work  of  art.  The  punishment 
should  come  from  the  hand  of  society  to  satisfy  the 
conditions  of  a  drama.  But  remorse  is  sufficient  in 
this  play  to  cheat  Mephistopheles  of  his  due.    Hence, 

reality,  and  lo!  it  crumbles  under  our  feet.  Not  life,  not  perpetuity 
of  the  race,  but  death,  —  blank  nothingness  ;  the  conclusion  reads, 
'  If  man  cannot  know  truth,  then  he  cannot  exist.'  "  Letters  on 
Faust,  IX. 


422  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

both  the  external  and  internal  conditions  of  the  play 
demand  the  continuation  of  the  drama  into  another 
part.^ 

When  setting  out  on  the  journey  Mephistopheles 
names  the  destination :  ''■  The  little  world  and  the 
great  world  we  will  see."  The  little  world  contains 
what  may  be  represented  directly  in  its  proper  per- 
sons. All  the  members  of  the  family  may  be  brouglit 
before  us  in  the  drama ;  but  we  cannot  see  in  like 
manner  all  the  members  of  a  state  or  of  civil  society ; 

1  "  The  destruction  of  the  family  and  the  preservation  of  the  de- 
stroyer will  hardly  pass  for  a  satisfactory  solution,  either  logical  or 
artistic.  To  regard  the  poem,  however,  in  this  light,  would  be  our 
own  act,  and  the  conse([uent  difficulty  one  of  our  own  creation.  For 
this  would"  be  an  attempt  to  make  rather  than  to  read  the  poem. 
And  whatever  merit  or  demerit  might  attend  the  undertaking,  it 
would  hardly  be  fair  to  attribute  either  the  one  or  the  other  to  the 
author  of  Faust.  For  in  this  poem  we  have  for  our  theme,  '  the 
self-conscious  intelligence  in  conflict  with  itself,  —  with  its  entire 
content.'  Not  the  content  with  itself,  but  the  self-conscious  intel- 
ligence on  the  one  side,  and  its  content  on  the  other.  Included 
within  this  content  [as  a  single  phase  of  it],  we  have  the  institution 
of  the  family.  Hence,  the  collision  presented  is  one  not  inherent  in 
this  institution,  for  that  involves  as  its  presupposition  the  valid  ex- 
istence thereof,  [i.e.  a  collision  in  the  family  presupposes  the  family,] 
but  between  the  family  and  its  negation.  It  is,  therefore,  not  an  in- 
dependent, but  a  subordinate  collision.  .  .  .  Since  the  family  is  only 
a  part  of  this  content,  the  conflict  is  not  exhausted  by  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  family,  any  more  than  it  was  exhausted  at  the  end  of  the 
subjective  collision  which  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  the  rational 
vocation  of  Faust,  and  delivered  him  over  to  the  guidance  of  the 
understanding  with  its  finite  aims,  —  sensual  indulgence.  Hence, 
no  solution  is  presented  [in  this  First  Part],  or  is  possible  as  yet." 
Letters  on  Faust,  IX. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  423 

nor  can  art  and  religion  be  presented  except  in  a  typi- 
cal manner  to  ns.  Two  different  modes  of  art,  there- 
fore, prevail  in  the  Faust.  Objects  of  universal  scope 
and  significance,  like  nature  and  humanity  as  a  whole, 
or  like  the  process  of  empirical  science,  the  realm  of 
philosophical  ideas,  or  the  history  of  the  Christian 
religion,  are  represented  in  types  or  mythological 
figures,  such  as  Dante  has  used  in  the  Terrestrial 
Paradise,  where  the  elements  of  the  Church  and  their 
history  are  emblematically  bodied  forth.  Thus  we 
have  such  forms  as  the  Erdgeist,  the  Macrocosm,  the 
dog,  the  Homunculus,  the  Mothers,  and  the  closing- 
scene  in  Heaven,  all  adumbrating  what  cannot  be 
presented  to  us  immediately,  like  the  family,  whose 
members  we  may  see  and  hear.^ 

Mephistopheles  is  the  mythological  impersonation 
of  unscrupulous  selfishness,  which  sacrifices  others  for 
its  own  greed.  It  is  the  human  subjective  counter- 
part of  the  Earth-Spirit,  who  is  conceived  to  create  a 
world  of  human  beiugs,  and  endow  them  with  aspira- 
tions for  infinite  truth,  but  who  withholds  from  them 
all  possibility  of  attainment,  —  who  is,  in  short,  a 
birth  and  a  grave  for  all  individuals.  If  man  wor- 
ship such  a  god,  and  take  him  as  a  model  on  which 
to  mould  his  own  character,  he  will  of  course  become  a 
"  spirit  that  denies."  He  will  not  feel  himself  bound 
to  respect  any  finite  particular  beings  like  men,  nor 

1  This  is  an  epitome  of  Brockmeyer's  view,  given  at  length  in  his 
lectures  (unpublished).  He  holds  that  presentative  art  is  used 
chiefly  in  the  First  Part,  but  representative  art  in  the  Second  Part. 


424  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

any  being  subordinate  to  him,  because  such  are  not 
respected  by  the  Absolute.  He  will  respect  only  the 
great  negative  powers  of  nature,  over  which  he  can 
exercise  no  control,  and  which  therefore  resemble  in 
this  regard  the  Absolute.  Mephistopheles  justifies 
himself,  accordingly,  by  saying  that  all  things  called 
forth  into  being  out  of  the  void  are  destined  for  de- 
struction again  by  the  same  pantheistic  energy  that 
created  them,  and  therefore  "  it  were  better  had  they 
never  been  created."  Like  the  Earth-Spirit,  too,  he 
has  reserved  the  flame  for  his  element.  Hence,  one 
might  trace  out  the  logical  connection  between  the 
Earth-Spirit  and  Mephistopheles,  —  the  former  con- 
ceived as  the  objective  universal  process  of  the  world, 
and  the  latter  as  a  human  character  formed  in  imita- 
tion of  that  type  as  an  ideal 

Goethe  believed  in  typical  facts  (JJrphdnonune)  in 
science,  as  he  tells  us  himself.  The  Second  Part  of 
Faust  deals  in  artistical  devices  equivalent  to  those 
types  in  nature.  In  consequence  of  this  form  of  rep- 
resentation, the  entire  work  is  an  enigma  to  most 
readers.  Portions  of  the  Margaret  episode  are  vividly 
clear  to  all,  —  as  if  written  with  lightning  flashes  on 
a  thunder-cloud.  But  it  is  of  far  more  importance  to 
the  literary  student  to  master  Goethe's  typical  forms. 
They  constitute  a  system  of  mythology,  under  which 
the  modern  world  masquerades,  just  as  truly  as  the 
Greek  world  did  under  Homer's  system  of  Olympian 
deities.  A  long  life  of  keenest  observation  and  re- 
flection, reinforced  by  poetic  inspiration,  is  summed 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  425 

up  in  these  new  symbols.  It  is  the  highest  object  of 
intellectual  culture  to  comprehend  those  vast  general 
processes  of  the  social  world  which  generate  these 
problems  of  life,  of  which  all  art  worthy  of  the  name 
treats.  Such  phenomena  as  the  French  Eevohition 
and  the  Napoleonic  wars,  the  American  Eepublic, 
productive  industry,  the  revival  of  art,  modern  liter- 
ature, the  scientific  spirit,  —  all  these  and  their  like 
are  intimately  concerned  with  Mephistopheles  and 
the  victory  over  him. 

He  who  aspires  to  find  in  literature  something 
higher  than  mere  idle  amusement,  therefore,  will 
study  Faust,  and  especially  its  Second  Part.  Ear- 
nest study  will  discover  the  significance  of  the  vast 
shadowy  forms,  and  the  student  will  by  degrees  learn 
to  use  those  mythologic  types,  and  think  out  by  their 
aid  solutions  to  the  problems  of  the  world.  Classic 
literature  has  furnished  us  with  mythologic  person- 
ages and  events  as  means  of  expression  for  life;  but 
for  life  as  it  was  in  the  classic  epoch,  and  for  life  in 
all  ages  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  identical  with  it.  The 
poetical  insight  discovers  the  essentials  of  human 
life,  and  expresses  them  in  any  age  or  in  any  nation. 
But  the  temporary  environment  of  those  essentials, 
and  the  consciousness  that  characterizes  the  epoch, 
require  special  treatment.  Hence,  it  is  necessary 
for  a  new  world-poet  to  appear  in  each  epoch,  if 
its  prosy  elements  are  to  be  made  poetical,  and  the 
age  is  to  have  a  spectacle  of  itself  in  its  recognizable 
features. 


426  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF  GOETHE. 

The  Second  Part  of  Faust  moves  in  an  atmosphere 
entirely  different  from  that  of  the  First  Part.  It  is 
serene  and  full  of  light,  —  a  truly  Celestial  Paradise 
compared  with  the  Inferno  of  the  First  Part.  The 
"  little  world,"  where  the  individual  can  make  or 
mar,  is  behind  us  in  the  journey,  and  we  are  arrived 
at  the  "  great  world  "  of  institutions  which  transcend 
the  individual  might  and  are  the  joint  product  of  the 
social  whole. 

The  first  and  opening  scene  portrays  for  us  the  in- 
fluences of  nature  and  the  lapse  of  time,  which  heal 
spiritual  as  well  as  physical  wounds.  In  the  case  of 
spiritual  injuries,  there  must  be  repentance  and  re- 
nunciation, a  removal  of  the  cause,  just  as  in  the  case 
of  physical  wounds  there  must  be  a  removal  of  the 
producing  causes  before  the  healing  process  can  set 
in.  Tepid  winds,  the  fragrance  of  flowers,  shadow 
and  twilight,  night's  repose,  —  these  are  the  elves 
that  draw  out  the  barbs  that  remorse  fixes  in  the  soul. 
These  fiery  bitter  arrows  of  self-reproach  {cles  Vorwurfs 
gluhend  bittre  Pfeile)  allude  to  his  genuine  repentance 
for  the  evil  he  has  done.  Mephistopheles  repents  of 
nothing,  and  suffers  no  grief  in  his  mind.  But  Faust 
has  a  human  heart  besides  his  evil  principles,  and 
suffers  for  his  sins. 

A  new  day  awakes  after  the  beautiful  Chorus  of  the 
Elves  recording  the  march  of  the  Hours.  Ariel  an- 
nounces the  approach  of  the  sun,  a  symbol  of  the 
Absolute,  and  we  have  an  allusion  to  the  baffled  pur- 
suit of  pure  truth.      The  full  light  of  the  sun  cannot 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  427 

be  borne,  but  one  may  gaze  refreshed  upon  its  re- 
fracted image  in  the  rainbow.  So,  instead  of  pure 
truth,  let  us  look  upon  its  refracted  image  in  the 
institution  of  the  State,  which  we  shall  see  in  its 
visible  representative. 

In  the  second  scene  we  behold  this  Emperor  and 
his  court.  It  is  not  a  State,  but  the  State,  —  the 
Holy  Eoman  Empire,  which  in  the  time  of  Charle- 
magne included  all  Western  and  Central  Europe,  and 
under  his  successors  in  the  Middle  Ages  included 
Italy  and  Germany,  but  finally  was  confined  to  the 
latter  country.  It  is  the  true  "Monarchy"  of  Dante, 
whose  universal  power  shall  bring  unity  of  law,  and 
consequently  peace,  to  all  the  world.  It  is  borne  in 
mind  that  the  coronation  of  the  Emperor  took  place 
in  Goethe's  city,  Erankfort,  and  in  his  youth  he  had 
seen  the  great  festival  accompanying  it. 

In  the  Emperor,  Goethe  has  given  us  a  Faust  of 
the  type  we  have  seen  in  the  First  Part.  He  wishes 
to  be  amused  and  is  not  scrupulous  as  to  the  means. 
He  is  a  selfish  pleasure-seeker,  who  has  virtually 
signed  a  compact  with  Mephistopheles.  Faust  has 
passed  beyond  this  phase  of  immediate  sensuality  by 
the  purgatorial  influences  of  sin  and  remorse,  and  now 
has  ambition  for  power,  and  will  soon  develop  a  pas- 
sion for  art.  The  description  of  the  condition  of  the 
Empire,  on  the  verge  of  ruin,  is  given  through  the  . 
mouths  of  the  Chancellor,  Commander-in-chief,  Treas- 
urer, and  Lord  High  Steward.  Unscrupulous  devices 
of  Mephistopheles  at  once  provide  means  for  cele- 


428  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

brating  the  Carnival.  This,  is  prepared  under  the 
direction  of  Faust,  who  embodies  in  the  masquerade 
a  political  phantasmagoria  showing  the  genesis  and 
destruction  of  the  State.  In  like  manner,  the  classi- 
cal Walpurgis  Night  gives  the  genesis  of  Greek  art 
out  of  Egyptian  and  Syrian  art,  —  a  sort  of  symbolic- 
classic  phantasmagoria,  as  the  "  Helena  "  is  called  a 
"  Classico-Komantic  Phantasmagoria  "  by  Goethe  him- 
self;  the  latter  shows  the  genesis  of  modern  or  ro- 
mantic art  through  the  study  of  the  classic  art. 

Amusement  and  play  have  this  significance :  man 
loves  to  see  himself  as  a  social  whole.  In  play  the 
individual  enjoys  the  sense  of  his  potential  greatness 
without  the  real  labor  and  suffering  necessary  to  pro- 
duce it.  The  species,  the  race,  is  a  giant ;  the  indi- 
vidual, by  contrast,  a  puny  dwarf.  The  Carnival  as 
an  annual  festival  has  this  significance :  man  delights 
to  see  the  image  of  society,  and  to  feign  that  he  as  in- 
dividual is  free  to  assume  any  station  or  vocation  for 
himself.  The  beggar  may  masquerade  as  king,  the 
slave  as  master,  the  male  as  female,  the  high  as  low, 
celebrating  in  this  way  the  fact  that  each  man  is  in 
substance  all  men.  It  was  not  a  wide  departure  from 
the  original  and  traditional  purport  of  the  carnival, 
therefore,  for  Goethe  to  employ  it,  as  he  does,  to 
adumbrate  the  genesis  and  destruction  of  the  highest 
political  institution,  and  show  us  civil  society,  with 
its  many  vocations,  grounded  on  the  power  of  civil 
government. 

In  the  Carnival  scene  we  see  peace  and  plenty  under 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  429 

the  masks  of  the  olive  branch  and  the  wheat  sheaf, 
beauty  and  refinement  typified  by  the  fancy  nosegay 
and  the  budding  roses.  Then  the  gardeners,  the 
mother  and  daughter,  and  the  dumb  show  following 
it,  illustrate  the  social  instinct  to  veil  the  natural 
under  the  form  of  the  ideal.  The  drunken  man  is  the 
consequence  of  the  gratification  of  mere  natural  appe- 
tite :  intoxication  may  realize  the  carnival  at  any  sea- 
son of  the  year.  But  the  natural  appetites  must  be 
restrained  if  society  is  to  be,  and  for  this  purpose  the 
Graces  enter  on  the  scene.  These  insist  on  seeing  the 
ideal,  in  place  of  the  real.  They  restore  freedom  and 
charm  to  society.  The  Fates,  who  follow  next,  state 
the  limits,  laws,  and  measures  that  result  from  the 
application  of  the  ideal  to  the  real,  and  hence  they  are 
kindred  of  the  Graces.  They  set  up  a  standard,  or 
norm.  But  the  Graces  have  counterparts,  the  Furies. 
Eeject  the  Graces,  who  treat  each  one  as  if  he  em- 
bodied all  human  perfection,  —  and  this  is  the  essence 
of  courtesy,  —  and  take  note  only  of  human  limita- 
tions and  imperfections  of  individuality,  and  you 
will  invoke  the  Furies.  Hatred  and  jealousy,  cal- 
umny and  slander,  destroy  the  social  bond,  and  lead 
on  to  violence :  Tisiphone  mixes  poison,  and  sharpens 
daggers,  and  sets  in  motion  the  infinite  progress  of 
the  feud  and  blood  revenge. 

Authority  is  shown  to  be  necessary  as  the  founda- 
tion of  society,  and  to  control  the  Furies.  Its  mask 
now  enters  as  a  Colossus,  an  elephant  guided  by 
Prudence  sitting  on  his  neck,  with  two  chained  fig- 


/ 


430  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

ures  walking  on  either  side,  in  ■whom  we  are  to  recog- 
nize Fear  and  Hope,  the  former  signifying  mistrust, 
which  suspects  evil  in  one's  neighbor,  and  thus  lacks 
confidence  sufficient  to  combine  with  its  fellow  men  ; 
the  latter,  Hope,  in  the  sense  of  green  trustfulness, 
which  goes  to  the  other  extreme,  and  places  all  its 
fortune  in  the  hands  of  other  individuals,  and  thus 
reaches  the  same  result,  the  destruction  of  society. 
High  aloft  rides  Victory,  dazzling  the  sight.  Zoilo- 
Thersites,  the  partisan  defamer  who  works  to  under- 
mine civil  authority,  is  chastised  by  the  herald. 

Under  the  sway  of  civil  order,  property  becomes 
secure,  and  wealth  may  be  accumulated.  The  car  of 
Plutus  (the  god  of  wealth)  accordingly  enters  now, 
guided  by  a  boy  charioteer  dressed  in  the  robes  of 
Apollo  as  leader  of  the  Muses,  who  tells  us  that  he  is 
Poesy.  While  Poesy  guides  the  car  of  Plutus,  a  taste 
for  the  beautiful  converts  wealth  into  a  blessing  for 
all  people.  The  poet  uses  wealth  in  the  service  of 
art ;  he  gilds  all  prose  reality  with  the  gold  of  his 
own  imagination,  so  that  no  one  looks  upon  it  any 
more  as  a  plain  ugly  fact,  but  sees  it  shining  M'ith 
the  ideal.  Just  in  this  way  Walter  Scott  has  gilded 
the  lakes  and  moorlands  of  Scotland,  or  Longfellow 
and  Whittier  and  Hawthorne  have  gilded  places  and 
scenes  in  New  England.  After  the  boy-Apollo  has 
snapped  his  fingers,  gold  and  pearls  and  costliest 
jewels  abound.  He  uses  wealth  for  pictures,  statues, 
stately  temples,  scientific  museums,  parks  for  health- 
ful amusement.     We  learn  to  see  the  prose  fact  trans- 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  431 

figured  by  associations  with  human  interests,  and 
crowned  with  an  aureola  of  historic  importance. 

The  chariot  of  wealth  is  drawn  by  dragons  or  watch- 
ful guardians  of  property,  —  the  police,  the  civil  and 
criminal  judiciary,  and  the  men  of  the  law.  In  con- 
trast to  the  right  user  of  wealth  comes  the  starveling, 
Mephistopheles  masquerading  as  Avarice,  sitting  on  a 
chest  of  gold  behind  Poesy.  He  uses  wealth  to  cor- 
rupt the  morals  of  the  people,  and,  for  effeminate 
luxury  or  for  selfish  hoarding  purposes,  keeps  property 
out  of  channels  of  greatest  usefulness. 

Poesy  now  takes  leave  of  Plutus,  and  extravagance 
under  the  influence  of  Mephistopheles,  dissipates  the 
wealth  in  the  form  of  molten  gold,  which  the  crowd 
struggle  to  obtain.     Wild  riot  ensues. 

The  Emperor  comes  in  under  the  mask  of  Pan,  as  a 
selfish  tyrant,  with  rough  satyrs,  gnomes,  fauns,  giants, 
and  nymphs,  typifying  selfish  courtiers  and  the  hang- 
ers-on at  the  licentious  court  circle  that  surrounded 
the  central  power  in  the  Holy  Ptoman  Empire,  and  es- 
pecially the  French  king  just  previous  to  the  Ptevolu- 
tion.  Waste  of  property  on  the  part  of  men  in  power 
demoralizes  the  industries  of  the  people.  The  destruc- 
tion of  the  civil  authority  takes  place  through  the  evil 
influence  of  the  parasites  that  infest  the  highest  politi- 
cal power.  The  whole  fabric  of  the  State  flames  up  in 
one  disastrous  revolution,  in  which  the  Emperor  Pan 
("L'^tat  c'est  moi")  is  consumed  in  flames,  —  or  ap- 
pears to  be  in  the  representation.  The  herald  laments, 
and  Plutus  (the  mask  of  Faust)  announces  the  Carnival 
closed. 


v/ 


432  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

-^  The  following  scene  shows  a  pleasure  garden,  in 
■which  the  Emperor  thanks  Faust  for  the  amusement 
he  has  received  from  the  masquerade.  To  liis  great 
surprise,  the  ministers  enter  and  report  all  their  for- 
mer difficulties  overcome  by  the  new  invention,  — 
the  Mephistophehan  principle  has  invented  for  the 
use  of  the  State  an  inconvertible  paper  money  !  ^ 

Goethe  had  studied  the  phenomenon  of  the  French 
"assignats,"  and  seen  their  wonderful  inflation  and 
disastrous  collapse.  All  becomes  prosperous  at  once : 
commerce  being  stimulated  to  the  highest  degree, 
agriculture  and  manufactures  flourish.  "With  plenty 
of  money  we  must  have  amusement.  The  beautiful 
must  be  presented  by  Faust  in  its  highest  form, — 
^  Greek  art.  Helen  must  be  brought  back  and  "  ma- 
terialized." Mephistopheles  cannot  create  the  beauti- 
ful, for  he  engages  only  to  adapt  finite  means  to  finite 
ends  ;  the  beautiful  is  produced  by  putting  the  finite 
under  the  form  of  the  infinite,  i.  e.  by  making  it  ap- 
pear as  expressing  personal  freedom.  But  Mephis- 
topheles, as  principle  of  negation,  can  show  how  to 
think  abstractly,  so  he  gives  a  "  little  key  "  {Nein,  = 
not,  i.  e.  the  negative  typifies  all  abstraction),  to  Faust, 

1  "  Paper  money  is  the  money  of  the  understanding  ;  gold,  the 
money  of  the  reason."  Brockmeyer's  Lectures  on  Faust  (unxmb- 
lished). 

This  wonderful  commentator  has  not  carried  out  his  interpreta- 
tion beyond  the  First  Part  of  Faust,  except  so  far  as  to  lay  the  basis 
for,  and  show  the  necessity  of,  the  two  parts,  and  indicate  the 
two  styles  of  treatment  and  the  two  different  spheres  of  life  to  be 
treated. 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  433 

and  advises  him  to  seek  the  "  Mothers."  He  cautions 
liini  to  hold  the  key  off  from  his  body  ;  and  with  good 
reason,  for  if  one  is  to  understand  the  mode  of  think- 
ing of  another  people  far  separated  by  time,  he  must 
free  himself  from  his  subjective  personal  likes  and 
dislikes,  and  get  an  objective  criterion.  The  operation 
of  the  key  he  describes  :  "  Sink,  then  !  I  might  say 
also,  rise !  it  is  the  same  thing :  fly  that  which  has 
come  into  being,  in  the  unbound  spaces  of  forms." 
This  seems  a  poetic  way  of  describing  philosophic 
reflection,  which  abstracts  from  the  conditions  of  ex- 
istence in  order  to  reach  pure  ideas.  The  "  Mothers  " 
are  enthroned  goddesses,  spaceless  and  timeless  like 
Plato's  archetypal  ideas.  Mephistopheles  describes 
these  with  much  particularity.  They  are  seen  by  the 
light  of  a  glowing  tripod  engaged  in  creating  and 
transforming  finite  things,  —  "  the  eternal  amusement 
of  the  eternal  intelligence."  The  patterns  of  all  crea- 
tures hover  round  them.  Plutarch  describes  the 
Platonic  ideas  as  "the  causes,  forms,  and  original 
images  of  all  things  which  have  been  and  which 
shall  be."  Commentators  find  passages  in  Plutarch's 
Morals  which  may  have  furnished  Goethe  the  poetic 
images  here  used,  but  it  is  clear  enough  that  the  idea 
is  Platonic,  and  traces  to  Plato's  Pythagoreanism. 
While  it  is  interesting  to  examine  minutely  the  de- 
tails of  this  remarkable  device  by  which  Faust  brings 
up  Helen  from  the  underworld,  it  is  not  necessary 
for  the  general  purposes   of  comprehending  Faust. 

Goethe  wishes  to  embody  in  a  type  the  method  of  the 

28 


w 


\  ,■■' 


434  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

a  priori  road  to  the  principles  of  the  Beautiful.  No 
modern  can  understand  the  spirit  of  Greek  art  with- 
out such  a  journey  to  the  "Mothers."  The  Mephis- 
tophelian  "  spirit  that  denies "  cannot  accompany 
Faust  on  his  journey  thither,  although  it  has  to  fur- 
nish a  necessary  key,  abstraction  from  one's  own  en- 
vironment. Greek  art  has  an  environment  peculiar 
to  it,  and  it  is  necessary  to  comprehend  that  in  order 
to  see  its  genesis. 

Faust  brings  up  Paris  and  Helen  to  the  stage,  and 
exhibits  them  to  the  mighty  Emperor,  —  much  as 
Eacine  and  Corneille  produced  for  the  court  of  Louis 
XIV.  their  French-Greek  plays.  But  here  we  are 
to  learn  that  the  a  priori  method,  although  sufficient 
to  accomplish  such  wonders  as  these,  does  not  suf- 
fice for  the  soul  that  falls  in  love  with  art.  Faust 
touches  Paris  with  his  key,  and  an  explosion  follows. 
The  "  materialized "  spirits  vanish,  and  Faust  lies 
senseless  on  the  ground.  The  danger  of  this  method 
of  producing  art  is,  that,  when  the  artist  comes  to  the 
concrete,  he  supplies  modern  details  and  environment, 
and  not  the  antique.  He  falls  out  of  his  part.  The 
Greek  art  exists  for  the  Greek  type  of  culture,  Helen 
for  Paris,  and  Paris  for  Helen.  If  Faust  wishes 
Helen  for  himself,  he  must  create  in  himself  the 
Greek  type  of  culture  by  the  slow  process  of  studying 
its  genesis  step  by  step.  His  a  i^riori  method  may 
bring  him  to  the  spectacle  of  the  beautiful,  but  it  does 
not  give  him  creative  possession  of  it.  French-Greek 
art  is  after  all  not  Greek  in  spirit,  althougli  it  has 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  435 

some  external  resemblance  to  it.  Eacine  and  Cor- 
neille  both  touched  the  resuscitated  Greek  with  their 
magic  key.  Like  Faust,  they  insisted  in  putting 
themselves  into  the  play,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
making  the  Greek  form  of  the  drama  hold  modern 
personages  and  ways  of  life. 

\  Faust  became  unconscious  of  the  modern  environ- 
ment in  his  absorption  with  the  classic,  and  took  no 
more  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  Emperor's  court. 
Mephistopheles  must  seek  out  a  means  for  the  near- 
est approach  to  the  antique  beautiful,  and  accordingly 
returns  to  Wagner,  the  spirit  of  analytical  investiga- 
tion and  prose  erudition.  For  the  substantial  resto- 
ration of  the  Greek  sj)irit,  and  the  contemplation  of 
Greek  art  in  that  spirit,  in  our  age,  we  must  have 
something  besides  the  a  priori  production  of  it. 
There   must   be   excavations,  and   the    collection  of 

j  fragments,  which  are  to  be  studied  piece  by  piece, 

I  in  the  manner  that  erudition  and  archa3ology  have 

I  undertaken. 

The  Homunculus  represents  this  spirit  of  speciali- 
zation :  it  is  confined  in  a'  bottle,  and  typifies  the 
German  archaeologist  realized  in  Winckelmann  and 
his  followers,  and,  less  directly,  the  entire  modern 
spirit  of  inductive  science. 

If  sufficiently  limited,  a  field  of  investigation 
mapped  out  may  be  exhausted  by  the  individual  spe- 
cialist :  when  he  knows  it  exhaustively,  he  learns  to 
see  the  relativity  of  all  its  details.  Each  detail  is  de- 
pendent upon  and  suggests  all  the  others.     It  thus 


V 


V 


436  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

becomes  alive,  for  tlie  definition  of  a  living  organism 
is  this  :  each  part  is  both  means  and  end  to  all  the 
other  parts.  Sufficiently  specialized  and  narrowed 
down,  the  province  may  be  so  exhaustively  inves- 
tigated that  the  living  bond  of  connection  may  be 
found,  and  a  living  being  is  produced,  —  an  Honmn- 
culus  in  a  bottle.  Wagner  is  the  sort  of  scholar  who 
learns  to  "  confine  his  attention  to  the  dative  case,"  in 
order  that  he  may  not  simply  rehash  erudition  already 
existent,  but  himself  make  new  contributions  to  it. 
We  think  of  Winckelmann  patiently  measuring  the 
contour  of  the  several  features  of  the  face,  as  he  found 
them  in  antique  statues,  and  recording  the  angle  which 
the  open  eyelids  made  as  a  canon  by  which  to  iden- 
tify Venus,  Juno,  and  Diana  by  this  feature  alone. 
The  history  of  modern  science  abounds  in  Homun- 
culi.  Cuvier  specializes  comparative  anatomy,  and 
can  see  the  whole  animal  in  a  newly  discovered  fossil 
bone  from  the  Eocene  strata  ;  Lyell  can  read  its  his- 
tory in  a  pebble  ;  Niebuhr  can  see  the  actual  history 
adumbrated  in  a  Eoman  myth,  and,  like  Lyell,  inter- 
pret it  as  a  sort  of  drift  boulder  of  humanity,  broken 
off  from  its  connecting  strata,  and  ground  into  its 
shape  under  the  glaciers  of  revolution ;  Agassiz  could 
reconstruct  the  whole  fish  from  one  of  its  scales. 

With  Horaunculus  to  light  the  way,  Faust  may 
find  Helen,  of  a  surety.  The  classical  Walpurgis 
Night  shows  the  process  by  which  Greek  art  itself 
was  found.  It  began  with  traditions  from  Egypt  and 
Syria,  and  developed  out  of  their  art-forms,  half  ani- 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  437 

mal,  half  human,  such  as  the  sphinxes,  griffins,  sirens, 
centaurs,  pygmies,  and  dactyls.  Progressive  meta- 
morphoses separated  the  human  from  the  animal,  and 
finally  reached  the  sea-nymph,  Galatea,  as  the  perfect 
human  form.  The  artists  of  Rhodes  claim  to  be  the 
first  to  represent  the  high  gods  in  human  forms.  The 
Cabiri  (or  "  mighty  ones ")  of  the  Phcenicians  and 
Egyptians,  sons  of  Phtha  (the  Egyptian  Vu.lcan),  the 
divine  metal-worker,  indicate  the  bronze  statues  of 
the  gods  produced  by  Phtha  (hence  called  his  sons), 
and  mark  an  imj)ortant  transition  towards  Greek  art. 
The  studies  into  the  origin  of  the  earth,  rather  poetic 
conjectures  than  scientific  conclusions,  divide  between 
a  water  principle  and  a  fire  principle.  Thales  and 
Anaxagoras  represent  these  tendencies,  and  find  place 
in  Goethe's  poem  because  they  mark  the  undercurrent 
of  reflection  that  guides  unseen  the  development  of 
Greek  art  in  its  selection  of  a  worthy  representation 
of  the  divine  form.  The  fire,  symbol  of  spirit,  with 
water,  symbol  of  organic  matter,  are  united  in  Greek 
art  so  that  neither  preponderates.  Homunculus  as- 
pires to  free  himself  from  the  confinement  of  his  bot- 
tle, —  empiricism  strives  to  return  to  a  vision  of  the 
totality.  On  the  appearance  of  Galatea,  shining 
with  the  radiance  of  perfect  beauty,  he  breaks  his 
glass  against  her  chariot,  and  becomes  Eros,  or  poetic 
inspiration,  which  sees  the  whole  in  each  part. 

In  the  study  of  art  Eaust  arrives  at  the  insight 
into  the  formative  principle  in  the  divine.  Instead 
of  being  negative  to  form,  as  Pantheism  supposes,  it  is 


>!. 


438  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF   GOETHE. 

rather  the  formative  energy  that  Polytheism  presup- 
poses. Proteus,  who  is  indifferent  to  all  forms  and 
yet  ceaselessly  incarnating  himself,  teaches  Homun- 
culus  how  to  escape  from  his  bottle,  proving  himself 
to  be  the  principle  that  initiates  forms,  and  breaks 
forms  only  to  grow  by  transformation  into  higher 
ones.  The  poet  learns  to  recognize  in  all  things  the 
one  spiritual  principle;  and  this  is  the  reason  that 
he  speaks  in  the  language  of  metaphor  and  personi- 
fication, having  learned  that  all  things  are  means  of 
spiritual  expression. 

The  a  priori  mode  of  reaching  Greek  art  gave  place 
to  the  other  method  of  specialization,  which  sufficed  to 
bring  Greece  before  us  in  its  actual  genesis.  But  the 
result  of  the  specialized  inquiry  conducts  us  back  to 
the  standpoint  of  immediate  insight,  typified  by  Eros, 
i.  e.  poetic  or  artistic  insight,  which  sees  all  nature  a 
revelation  of  the  spiritual  totality,  just  as  a  single  bone 
revealed  the  living  animal  to  Cuvier. 

The  "  Helena"  has  the  advantage  of  the  wonderful 
commentary  of  Thomas  Carlyle.  Faust  finds  Helen  ; 
Euphorion  is  born,  adumbrating  modern  art  and  lit- 
erature arising  from  the  union  of  the  Greek  and  Teu- 
tonic  principles.  The  Greek  sought  the  representation 
of  free  individuality ,'  the  Teutonic  seeks  the  realiza- 
tion of  freedom  in  actual  life  :  the  union  of  the  two  is 
Romantic  art,  —  the  art  whose  principle  is  infinite  as- 
piration. But  Faust  does  not  find  his  problem  solved 
I  by  art,  —  Classic  or  Romantic.  One  great  thing  he 
has  learned  from  it,  as  we  have  seen,  —  the  Divine 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  439 

reveals  itself  in  forms,  and  above  all  in  the  human 
form.  This  points  towards  a  divine-human  nature. 
The  Absolute  is  at  least  a  form-giving  principle,  and 
loves  to  initiate  forms  and  to  perfect  them.  The  real 
essence  of  the  human  form,  it  is  true,  is  not  the  body, 
but  the  soul, —  an  energy  whose  characteristic  is  to  be 
subject  and  its  own  object.  This  principle  of  form  as 
the  essential  form  therefore  transcends  physical  form, 
although  it  finds  expression  in  the  latter.  Faust  leaves 
art,  and  struggles  up  to  a  more  adequate  communion 
with  the  essential  truth,  that  he  has  now  seen  a 
glimpse  of.  There  is  a  more  intimate  acquaintance 
possible  than  through  art.  He  can  recognize  the 
Divine  in  his  fellow  man,  and  feels  the  Absolute  to 
be  the  Spirit  of  the  invisible  Church  of  humanity. 

In  the  fourth  act  we  see  Faust  aspiring  to  become 
a  useful  citizen  in  the  secular  world.  He  desires  to 
see  the  people  multiply  and  be  well  fed,  and,  what  is 
more  important,  "  taught  and  well  bred,"  and  above 
all  active  in  helping  each  other. 

The  Mephistophelian  Emperor  has  lived  for  a  while 
in  luxury  by  means  of  his  paper  money,  but  the  deluge 
came  at  last  in  the  shape  of  revolution.  Faust  is, 
however,  no  longer  in  the  negative  mood,  but  wishes 
to  build  up  rather  than  tear  down.  He  assists  the 
Emperor  to  quell  the  insurrection.  He  does  not  ask 
in  return  the  gift  of  a  princixDality,  but  only  the  shore  . 
of  the  sea,  with  the  privilege  of  reclaiming  the  land 
covered  by  the  ocean  wastes.  It  is  a  place  for  labor 
rather  than  a  finished  product  that  he  wants.    He  does 


440  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETHE. 

not  conceive  the  Absolute  to  be  a  fixed  result,  like  a 
work  of  art,  nor  a  mere  negative  process,  like  the 
formless  Absolute  of  Pantheism.  He  is  an  Energy., 
that  delights  to  make  that  which  is  bad  good,  and 
that  which  is  good  better,  in  the  interest  of  human 
beings. 

The  fifth  act  shows  us  Faust  engaged  in  this  labor 
of  building  dikes  and  canals,  and  a  busy  people  set- 
tling on  the  newly  recovered  land,  and  an  ocean  com- 
merce tliriving. 

Here  at  last  Faust  has  found  the  moment  which 
seems  "  fair,"  and  he  could  live  in  the  thought  of  it 
forever  without  tedium.  This,  then,  is  the  goal  and 
object  of  human  nature,  that  condition  for  which  it 
was  intended.  To  be  the  builder  of  a  great  public 
benefit  gives  him  a  consciousness  that  is  ever  gratify- 
ing. In  the  service  of  his  fellow  men  he  sees  that  he 
can  always  be  happy.  He  overcomes  finally  his  worst 
enelny,  impatience  (he  had  cursed  patience  deeper 
than  all  on  occasion  of  his  compact  with  Mephistoph- 
eles)  and  now  renounces  magic.  He  sees  in  magic 
the  unscrupulous  might  that  looks  only  to  the  end 
desired,  and  is  not  duly  considerate  of  the  welfare  of 
the  human  interests  which  furnish  the  means.  The 
burning  of  the  cottage  of  Baucis  and  Philemon  by 
his  agents,  under  the  guidance  of  Mephistopheles,  is 
represented  as  teaching  him  this  last  lesson.  He  re- 
fuses now  to  recognize  his  nearly  helpless  condition, 
worn  out  and  blind  with  age  and  life's  cares.  He 
finds  refuge  from  all  grief  in  absorption  in  his  great 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  441 

work.  He  will  set  at  once  about  draining  a  pestilen- 
tial marsh  that  still  remains  by  the  neighboring  hill. 
Space  will  be  furnished  for  many  millions  of  human 
beings,  —  not  to  dwell  in  repose,  but  daily  earning 
their  freedom,  and  in  the  constant  feeling  of  their 
mutual  dependence.  With  this  thought,  which  can 
bring  happiness  to  him  even  in  the  physical  pain  of 
deatli,  he  dies.  Mephistopheles  has  brought  him  to 
say  to  the  passing  moment,  "  Stay,  for  thou  art  fair," 
and  technically  in  one  sense  won  his  wager ;  but  in 
reality  he  has  lost  his  wager,  for  he  has  not  found 
any  sensual  delights  nor  selfish  delights  of  any  kind 
that  could  satisfy  Faust.  He  has  found  that,  not 
selfishness,  but  altruism  alone,  can  satisfy  human  na- 
ture. The  augels,therefore,_win^ Faust's  soul.  They 
appear  in  the  clouds  and  drive  away  the  demons 
with  a  shower  of  roses  (symbols  of  love).  The  good 
does  not  fight  with  weapons  of  hate  ;  but  to  the  de- 
monic nothing  is  so  repulsive  as  love  and  self-sacri- 
fice for  others. 

The  closing  scene  is  the  noblest  culmination  of  this 
wonderful  drama.  It  shows  us  the  four  great  leading 
ideas  of  Christianity  which  have  characterized  the 
four  epochs  of  its  history. 

_  Pater,Ecstaticus  is  the  type  that  prevailed  in  the 
first  epoch.  Then  the  individual  had  to  renounce 
not  only  his  animal  nature,  but  also  the  heathen  civ- 
ilization, and  flee  to  the  desert,  seeking  as  a  hermit 
to  purify  himself  within.  He  sought  later,  under  the 
lead  of  St.  Benedict,  to  create  artificial  desert  caves 


442  LIFE  AND   GENIUS   OF    GOETHE. 

by  building  monasteries  with  high  walls,  which  shut 
out  civilization,  although  in  the  midst  of  it.  The 
monastery  improved  on  the  solitary  hermit  life  by 
forming  a  Christian  community,  a  Church.  Pater 
Ecstaticus  is  eager  for  martyrdom,  to  purge  away 
the  earthly  dross  that  dims  his  purity, 

Next  came,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  two  wonder- 
ful men,  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis.  Both  issued 
forth  from  the  monastery  to  conquer  the  world  out- 
side of  its  walls.  It  was  not  sufficient  to  shut  out 
->  the  world;  sin  must  be  shut _ out  jrom^  jhe  world. 
St.  Dominic's  movement  is  typified  by  Pater  Pro-^- 
fundus.  The  Dominicans  revived  learning,  and  mas- 
tered the  literatures  and  philosophies  of  ancient 
times,  and  built  up  the  vast  structure  of  Christian 
theology.  They  recognized  God,  not  as  •hostile  to 
nature  and  science  and  literature,  but  as  the  Creator 
of  them.  Hence,  Pater  Profundus  recognizes  "  mes- 
sengers of  God's  love  "  in  the  lightnings  and  torrents 
that  had  been  thought  the  work  of  the  Devil. 

r^ter^  SerajDhicus,  typifying  the  movement  of  St. 
7  Francis,  who  went  out  to  the  lowliest  people,  and 
repeated  Christ's  mission  to  the  beggars  and  outcasts, 
expresses  his  tender  love  for  that  which  is  most  in 
need.  "  Boys  with  a  soul  and  sense  half  shut,"  hav- 
ing died  before  they  saw  the  light  of  this  life,  are  for 
the  angel  souls  the  sweetest  gain.  They  have  been 
deprived  of  the  experience  of  the  earth-life,  but  the 
angels  will  see  to  it  that  it  is  all  made  up  to  them 
by  imparting  to  them  their  experience.      "  Use  my 


GOETHE'S  FAUST.  443 

eyes,"  says  the  holy  father,  and  "  gaze  upon  the  world 
of  human  experience."  This  is  the  finest  touch  in 
Faust.  Instead  of  the  cold  haughtiness  of  the  Earth- 
Spirit,  who  repels  human  finitude,  Goethe  has  found 
that  God's  love  is  so  tender  toward  individuality 
that  it  nurses  into  being  and  fulness  even  the  em- 
bryonic forms  that  fail  to  mature  in  the  earth-life.  ~ 
The  spirit  of  Faust  is  placed  in  charge  of  these 
embryonic  souls,  who  receive  him  in  his  "chrysalis 
state,"  and  proceed  to  loosen  the  flakes  of  earthly 
nature  that  encompass  him. 

Doctor  Marianus  (named  from  Maria,  because  he 
proclaims  the  Virgin)  is  the  complement  of  Pater 
Seraphicus  in  that  he  utters  the  doctrine  that  the 
highest  principle  in  the  universe  is  God's  grace, 
symbolized  under  the  form  of  the  Holy  Virgin,  who 
appears  as  Mater  Gloriosa,  surrounded  by  penitent 
women,  among  whom  we  recognize  Margaret. 

It  has  been  suggested,  however,  by  Rosenkranz  and 
others,  that  Doctor  Marianus  represents  the  soul  ot 
Faust  after  it  has  grown  "fair  and  great  by  holy  living," 
as  the  chorus  of  blessed  boys  pronounces  him  after  the 
earthly  flakes  are  removed.  Pater  Ecstaticus  is  repre- 
sented as  "hovering  up  and  down";  Pater  Profundus 
as  in  the  "  lower  region  " ;  Pater  Seraphicus  as  in  the 
"middle  region";  Doctor  Marianus  as  "in the  highest, 
purest  cell."  It  would  seem  from  this  that  Doctor 
Marianus  is  intended  as  a  fourth  in  the  list  of  his- 
torical types.  Diintzer  informs  us  that  "Doctor"  was 
substituted  for  "  Pater,"  as  first  written.    The  "blessed 


444  LIFE  AND   GENIUS  OF   GOETUE. 

boys "  who  welcomed  Faust  hover  about  him,  and 
announce  that  Faust  is  outgrowing  them  with  mighty- 
limbs,  and  that  he  will  return  them  a  rich  reward  for 
their  assistance ;  he  will  share  with  them  his  rich 
earthly  experience.  Doctor  Marianus  exhorts  the  peni- 
tents to  look  up  to  the  tender  glance  of  the  Madonna, 
who  has  been  drawn  near  to  the  earth  to  assist  them. 
This,  coming  directly  after  the  Mater  Gloriosa  has 
assigned  Faust  for  instruction  as  an  immature  spirit 
("  StiU  blindeth  him  the  new  glare  of  day  ")  to  Mar- 
garet, in  reply  to  her  petition,  proves  that  Goethe 
could  not  have  intended  to  represent  him  under  the 
title  Doctor  ]\Iarianus. 

Margaret's  prayer  to  the  Mater  Gloriosa  intention- 
^  ally  recalls  her  prayer  to  the  Mater  Dolorosa  in  the 
First  Part. 

A  Chorus  Mysticus  closes  the  drama,  uniting  in  one 
statement  the  doctrines  of  the  Holy  Fathers  and  of 
the  Doctor,  and  announces  the  doctrine  of  divine 
grace  as  the  supreme  principle  :  "  All  that  is  perish- 
able is  but  a  symbol ;  the  inadequate  grows  here  to 
complete  reality;  the  indescribable  here  is  accom- 
plished ;  the  Eternal- Womanly  draweth  us  on." 

The  womanly  element  in  the  Divine  Being  de- 
scribes especially  the  tenderness  and  graciousness  that 
nurture  what  is  feeble  and  impotent,  and  lacking  char- 
acter, into  strength  and  maturity.  The  infant  lacks 
responsibility,  and  cannot  be  treated  from  the  stand- 
point of  justice  without  destroying  him.  His  deed 
of  caprice  must  not  be  returned  upon  him  as  on  a 


Of  THe         '     \y 
GOETHE'S  FAUST.r.^^^'Q^^\t^.  445 

mature  person.  His  freaks  and  irrationality  are  borne 
patiently  by  the  mother,  and  his  individuality  gradu- 
ally drawn  out  and  developed.  Hence,  the  feminine 
element  in  the  Divine  Nature  has  especial  reference  to 
God's  grace,  which,  according  to  Goethe,  deals  with  a 
world  of  imperfect  creatures,  and  leads  them  towards  "^ 
their  own  good  through  their  freedom. 

In  the  eighth  book  of  the  Autobiography,  already 
referred  to,  Goethe  indicates  such  a  view  of  theology 
at  the  age  of  twenty  years  as  corresponds  with  the 
conclusion  of  this  Second  Part  of  Faust.  When  man 
had  fallen,  instead  of  permitting  him  to  lapse  into 
annihilation,  the  Elohim  chose  to  initiate  a  movement 
of  restoration,  and  to  save  by  an  act  of  divine  con- 
descension what  was  otherwise  lost  through  perversion 
of  its  own  freedom. 

It  is,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  most  interesting 
event  in  literary  history,  that  Goethe  should  conduct    ^ 
his  hero  from  pantheistic  agnosticism  to  Christian 
theism. 


INDEX. 


ABSOLUTE,  the  search  after,  388; 
a  formless  principle,  389. 

Achilles,  as  drawn  by  Homer,  374, 377. 

Adams,  Sarah  Holland,  translation  of 
Grimm,  384. 

.aischylus  cited,  82,92. 

Agamemnon ,  365,  374. 

Agnosticism  of  Faust,  393 ;  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  394. 

Albee,  John,  his  essay  on  Goethe,  xxiii, 
39-67. 

Alchemy,  of  the  Arabians,  385,  387; 
studied  by  Goethe,  385  ;  by  Faust, 
388  ;  by  Wagner,  395. 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson,v;  his  criticism  of 
Goethe,  172-176;  reads  Faust,  172- 
175 ;  suggests  Webster  as  an  American 
Mephistopheles,  174 ;  describes  the 
mission  of  the  Devil,  176. 

Alexander  the  Great,  170. 

Amalia,  Duchess  of  Weimar,  vi. 

American  barbarians,  158. 

American  literature,  162,  180. 

American  Revolution,  381. 

American  translations  of  Goethe  men- 
tioned, 181,  218. 

Annals,  of  Goethe,  54. 

Anster's  version  of  Faust,  173. 

Apothegms  of  Goethe,  120. 

Arabian  chemistry,  387. 

Architect,  the  Young,  in  Elective  Affini- 
ties, 264,  267-269,  270,  276. 

Ariosto,  mentioned  by  Frederick  the 
Great,  159. 

Aristotle,  quoted  or  mentioned,  70,  77, 
197. 

Arnold's  History  of  Heretics,  386. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  14,  168. 


Art  in  Goethe,  59,  378,  391. 
Aryans,  theology  of,  73-74. 
Assistant,   the,   in    Elective    Affinities, 

263,  264,  267. 
Athena,  in  Prometheus,  78-81,  92. 
Athens,  Bishop  of,  84. 
August,  Karl,  Grand  Duke,  xii. 
Augustine,  St.,  117. 
Austin,  Mrs.  Sarah,  35. 
Autobiography  of  Goethe,  3,  54,  291, 

385. 

BACON,  FRANCIS,  and  Goethe,  102, 
161. 

Bailey,  Philip  James,  his  Festus,  184. 

Bajadere,  the,  Goethe's  poem  of,  360. 

Baron  de  Jupiter,  349. 

Bartol,  Dr.,  his  essay  on  Goethe  and 
Schiller,  xxiii,  107-140;  quoted,  27, 
166 ;  his  criticism  discussed,  180. 

Basil,  the  alchemist,  385. 

Basse,  William,  (English  poet,)  quoted, 
179. 

Baumgart,  Dr.  Hermann,  the  best  ex- 
positor of  Das  Mirchen,  136, 139, 144. 

Beatrice  of  Dante,  110. 

Benedict,  St.,  70. 

Bernays,  Professor,  his  Junge  Goethe,  2. 

Bettine,  letter  to,  from  Goethe,  283 ; 
mentioned,  351. 

Bibliography  of  Goethe  in  general,  xiv; 
of  his  works,  xiv-xvii ;  of  works  on, 
xviii-xxi;  papers  on,  xxi,xxii;  con- 
cerning Goethe's  youth,  33-36;  mis- 
cellaneous, 33,  34;  Herder,  34,  35; 
Friederike  Brion,  35;  religious  views, 
35,  36 ;  Spinoza  and  Pantheism,  36. 

Bismarck,  Prince,  108,346. 


448 


INDEX. 


Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  remark  to  Qoethe, 

108. 
Botany,  Goethe  in,  46,  320. 
Briou,  Friederike,  11,  12,  35,  51,  167, 

318,  350. 
Brockmeyer,  Henry  C,   quoted,  875  ; 

his  Letters  on  Faust,  quoted,  388-300, 

394-396,  399-402,  405,  407,  408,  410, 

414,416,420,422,432. 
Buff,  Charlotte,  51. 
Biirgerlich,  347,  356. 
Burus,  Robert,  quoted,  86. 
Byrou,  Lord,  read  and  discussed   by 

Goethe,  186, 187. 

CS&kVi,  JULIUS,  of  Shakespeare, 
quoted,  376. 

Captain,  The,  in  Elective  Affinities,  261, 
262,272,273,277,278,286. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  116,  168,  373;  his 
opinion  of  Goethe,  119,  170;  com- 
pares Goethe  and  Schiller,  124,  125 ; 
translates  Das  Marcheu,  135,  136; 
quoted,  373 ;  his  critique  on  the 
Helena,  438. 

Charlotte,  in  Elective  Affinities,  257- 
260,  269-279,  282,  286,  312. 

Charlotte,  in  Werther,  348,  356. 

Chaucer,  mentioned  by  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney, 178 ;  by  Basse,  179  ;  quoted,  311. 

Cheney,  Mrs.  Ednah  D.,  essay  on  Das 
Ewig-Weibliche,  xxiii,  189-250. 

Child  Life  in  Goethe,  290-312  ;  in  Meis- 
ter,  295-307;  in  Gotz,  307-310;  in 
Faust,  310 ;  as  portrayed  by  Goethe, 
311,  312. 

Chorus  in  Heaven,  444. 

Church,  the  Christian,  375,  386. 

Clavigo,  Goethe's,  12,  240. 

Coleridge,  quoted,  231  ;  mentioned,  368. 

Colors,  Goethe's  Theory  of,  61,  229. 

Concord  School,  Lectures  on  Goethe  at, 
xxiii;  on  Pantheism ,  xxiv  ;  on  Dante 
and  Plato,  xxv. 

Corinth,  Die  Braut  von,  360,  361. 

Counterparts  (novel),  cited,  120. 

Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  382,  383. 

Cromwell,  quoted,  163. 

Culture,  as  understood  by  Goethe,  40. 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  131. 


D'ALEMBERT  and  Frederic  the 
Great,  158, 160. 

Dante,  44,  85,  99, 374  ;  and  Goethe,  110, 
231,  378  ;  his  Monarchy,  427. 

Darwin,  Charles,  114,  115. 

Davidson,  Thomas,  184 ;  essay  on 
Goethe's  Titanism,  xxiii,  68-106. 

Descartes,  100. 

Devil,  the,  174,  176,  342,  343. 

Dichtung  und  Wahrheit,  35,  226,  385. 

Dickens,  Charles,  mentioned,  233 ;  his 
women,  352. 

Dilettanti,  defined,  53. 

Divina  Commedia,  105,  374,  377. 

Donne,  John,  quoted,  167. 

Drama,  artistic  success  of  a,  190,  191 ; 
technical  success,  194-196 ;  the  com- 
plete, 196,  197-200. 

Dwight,  J.  S.,  translation  of  Faust 
quoted,  218. 

Dyans,  73,  74. 

EARTH-SPIRIT,  388,  389,  394. 
Easter  Morning,  in  Faust,  396,  407. 

Eckermann,  conversations  with  Goethe, 
3,  24;  letter  from  Goethe,  222; 
quoted,  247,  251,  314,  349. 

Education  of  children,  299. 

Edward  in  Elective  Affinities,  234-236, 
257,  258-279,  282,  286. 

Egmont  of  Goethe,  183,  191,  200,  304  ; 
analysis  of,  by  Mr.  Partridge,  207- 
209  ;  quoted,  364. 

Elective  Affinities,  of  Goethe,  112,  123, 
234-236;  essay  on,  251-289;  title  of, 
251 ;  the  only  true  novel  of  Goethe, 
254 ;  title  justified,  256,  257  ;  charac- 
ters of,  257-271 ;  plot  of,  271-279  ;  as 
a  work  of  art,  283;  is  not  immoral, 
284  ;  fate  in,  287,  288  ;  lessons  of  life 
in,  289. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  34,  168,  169, 172,  305, 
307;  contrasted  with  Goethe,  114, 
115  ;  his  criticism  of  Goethe,  115, 116, 
170, 171, 172. 

Emery,  S.  H.,  Jr.,  essay  on  Elective 
Affinities,  xxiii,  251-289. 

Encyelopredia  Britaunica,  quoted,  284  ; 
the  French,  382. 

Erd-Geist,  the,  389,  394. 


INDEX. 


449 


Erl  King,  The,  361. 

Erwin  of  Steinbach,  8. 

Ethics  of  Spinoza,  24,  36. 

Euphorion,  birth  of,  242,  310;  438. 

Euripides,  197,  199. 

Evil,  treatment  of,  by  Goethe,  175,  385. 

Ewig-Weibliche,  Mrs.  E.  D.  Cheney  on, 

218-249 ;  synopsis  of  this  lecture,  249, 

250;  361,362,367,444. 


FAIR  SAINT,  the,  358,  359,  385. 
Family,  the  institution,  242,  282, 
374. 

Eaust,  (the  poem,)  yiii,  2,  26,  111,  115, 
164,  200,  205,  345,  353,  357  ;  quoted, 
93,  94,  125-127,  210-220,  294,  295, 
355  ;  MSS.  of,  x,  xi ;  and  Marlowe's 
Dr.  Faustus,  160,  184,  315,  316; 
analysis  of,  by  Mr.  Partridge,  205- 
207  ;  by  Mrs.  Cheney,  243-246  ;  sex 
in,  247,  248  ;  T)as  Ewig-  Wcibliche 
in,  248;  child  life  in,  310;  essay  on 
the  form,  313-344 ;  conception  of, 
313-320;  the  poem  a  biography,  319  , 
composition  of,  320, 321, 328, 329;  gaps 
in,  321,  332  ;  publication  (1790)  of  the 
Fragment,  321-323 ;  small  apprecia- 
tion of  this,  324  ;  criticism  on  this, 
324-329  ;  publication  (1808)  of  the 
completion,  326,  328,  329  ;  favorable 
reception  of  this,  329  ;  commentary 
and  criticism  on,  329-336 ;  parallel 
criticism  on  the  Iliad,  334  ;  evolution 
and  final  completion  of,  342-344 ; 
characters  in,  353;  design  of,  392. 

Faust,  (the  character,)  66,  93,  94,  126, 
160,  161,  243-246,  378,  400-410 ,  his 
talk  with  Margaret  on  religion,  412  ; 
his  pantheism,  413,  414,  note ;  his 
journey  with  Mephistopheles,  417- 
422  ;  interpreted  by  Brockmeyer,  3it0- 
432  ;  his  later  life,  439-441 ;  his  death 
and  salvation,  441-444. 

Felix,  (the  boy,)  295-298,  303-305. 

Female  and  male  in  nature,  230 ;  in 
man,  231 ;  in  spirit,  2.32. 

Festus,  (English  poem,)  184. 

Fichte,  60. 

Fischer,  Euno,  critic  of  Faust,  yii,  330- 
332. 


France,  139 ;  "where  poet  neTer  grew," 
174  ;  in  Rousseau's  time,  381. 

Frankfort,  birthplace  of  Goethe,  4,  167  ; 
home  of  Goethe,  15,  16  ;  Gelehrte 
Anzclycn  of,  17  ;  reviews  in,  q^uoted, 
18-23;  coronation  at,  427. 

Frederic  the  Great,  sneers  at  Goethe 
and  German  literature,  158  ;  predicts 
the  future,  160  ;  ignorant  of  Schilior, 
160;  writes  to  D'Alembert,  158, 16U  ; 
to  VoUaine,  159  ;  to  Jordan,  166. 

Freitag,  G.,  quoted,  189. 

French,  the,  in  Frankfort,  4. 

French  literature,  139  ;  its  influence  on 
Goethe,  165,  381. 

French  Revolution,  139,  317,  380-383, 
425 

Frothingham,  Dr.  N.  L.,  translation  of 
Iphigenie,  181. 


GELLERT,  (German  poet,)  160. 
Genius,  the  old  Eternal,  171. 

George  IV.,  Byron's  verses  on,  184. 

Germany,  Das  Marchcn  a  prophecy  of, 
136  ;  narrative  of,  from  the  16th  cen- 
tury to  1795,  136,  137,  138 ;  Church 
of,  the  Old  Woman  in  Das  Mirchen, 
138,  144-147,  151, 152, 155  ;  genius  of, 
the  Youth  in  Das  Marchen,  138,  149- 
156  ;  ideal  of,  the  Fair  Lily  in  Das 
Murchen,138,142, 147-156  ;  language 
of,  158-160 ;  literature  of,  the  Ser- 
pent in  Das  Marchen,  138,  141,  142, 
145,  151,  152 ;  before  Goethe,  158, 
178  ;  after  Goethe,  164  ;  predicted  by 
Frederick  the  Great,  160  ;  philosophy 
of,  164. 

Gesner,  (German  poet,)  160. 

God,  defined  by  Dr.  Hedge,  25;  early 
conceptions  of,  72-79  ;  these  affected 
by  Christianity,  82,  83 ;  Goethe's 
ideas  of,  97-100,  355. 

Goethe,  JoUann  Wolfgang  von,  (born 
at  Frankfort,  1749,),  his  youth,  1-36  ; 
Autobiography,  3  ,  other  accounts  of 
his  youth,  4  ;  early  circumstances,  4  ; 
early  -  letters  quoted,  5  ;  at  Leipzig, 
6-8  ;  and  Ilerdor,  8-10  ;  early  love 
affairs,  1.3-15  ;  early  studies,  16  ;  lit- 
erary attempts,  18-21 ;  connected  with 


29 


450 


INDEX. 


the  Gelehrte  Anzeigen,  17 ;  reviews 
quoted,  19-21,  225  ;  standpoint  of  his 
criticism,  23  ;  and  Spinoza,  24  ;  his 
philosophy,  25-28 ;  summary  of  his 
first  t\7enty-fiTe  years,  29 ;  letters 
quoted,  30-33,  314  ;  bibliography  of 
his  youth,  33-36;  his  Self-Culture, 
37-67  ;  an  eminent  example  of  self- 
culture,  40 ;  characteristics  of  his 
style,  41 ;  his  creative  power,  43 ; 
as  a  realist,  44 ;  and  woman,  50- 
52  ;  objective  spirit  of,  55,  56  ;  op- 
posed to  technicality,  59,  60 ;  and 
Keats,  61 ;  opposed  to  specialism, 
62 ;  given  to  symbolizing,  63 ;  his 
Faust  and  Meister,  66 ;  his  Titan- 
ism,  68-106,  77,  78,  338,  339 ;  his 
Pi'ometheus,  78-81,  86,  87;  as  com- 
pared to  Gotz,  etc.,  86,  87,  88-91 ;  in 
Faust,  93,  94  ;  in  Gott  und  Welt,  95  ; 
in  Meister,  95,  96 ;  his  conceptions 
of  God,  96,  97  ;  stages  of  Titanism, 
102, 103 ;  complete  Titanism  impossi- 
ble to,  104,  105,  106;  and  Schiller, 
107-134;  and  Napoleon,  108;  one  of 
the  transcendent  bards,  110  ;  and 
Dante,  110 ;  and  Milton,  111  ;  and 
Emerson,  114,  115;  and  Carlyle,  116, 
119,  120;  his  faults,  110,  119  ;  not  a 
Cato,  120 ;  compared  with  Schiller, 
121-123, 124,  128, 131-134  ;  estimated 
by  Carlyle,  124,  125, 170 ;  and  Shake- 
speare, 128, 129,  161;  one  of  the  Magi, 
131  ;  his  Murchen  (1795),  135-156  ; 
patriotism  of,  137,  138  ;  and  English 
Literature,  157-188  ;  and  Frederic  the 
Great,  158-160  ,  and  Milton,  160  ,  and 
Bacon,  162  ;  egoism  of,  162 ;  and  Ger- 
man literature,  163  ;  models  of,  165  ; 
affected  by  Oriental  literature,  165  ;  in 
love,  166  ;  his  influence  on  English  lit- 
erature, 168  ,  his  real  work  in  litera- 
ture, 169  ;  eulogized  by  Emerson,  170- 
172;  by  Alcott,  172-176;  his  knowl- 
edge of  English  literature,  178  ,  the 
Shakespeare  of  Germany,  180  ;  Iphi- 
genia  his  most  perfect  drama,  181 ; 
this  quoted,  181-183 ;  discussed,  183 . 
his  Faust  legend,  184,  185 ;  and 
Crabhe  Robinson,  185-187  ;  discusses 
Byron,   186,   18V  ,  Milton,  185-187 ; 


and  Landor,  187,  188 ;  as  a  Play- 
wright, 189-217  ;  his  Gotz,  200-205  ; 
his  Faust,  206,  207;  his  Egmont, 
207-209  ;  his  Iphigenia,  209-211  ; 
his  Tasso,  211-213,  236;  his  short- 
comings as  a  playwright,  213,  214 ; 
reasons  for  these,  215,  216  ;  his 
Bii-iy-WeihUche,  218-250 ;  the  climax 
of  his  thought,  219 ;  letters  quoted, 
222  ;  his  thought  of  woman,  223  ;  his 
different  types  of  woman,  224 ;  his 
Wahrheit  und  Dichtung,  226  ;  a  mas- 
culine man,  227;  Elective  Affinities, 
234-236  ;  Wilhelm  Meister,  237,  238  ; 
Naturliche  Tochter,  238,  239;  Cla- 
vigo,  240 ;  his  love  and  marriage, 
241 ;  and  domestic  love,  242 ;  hia 
Elective  Affinities,  251-289 ;  a  poetic 
production,  252;  on  the  Novel,  253; 
the  only  true  novel  of,  254 ;  novels 
of,  criticised, 255;  letter  quoted  283; 
criticism  of  the  Elective  Affinities,  284, 
285  ;  his  Child  Life,  290-312  ,  child- 
hood of,  291 ;  early  religion  of,  292, 
293  ;  his  parents,  294  ;  and  mothers, 
310,  311 ;  and  woman,  311  ;  and  chil- 
dren, 310-312  ;  the  Faust  form  of,  313- 
344  ;  his  conception  of  Faust,  313,  314; 
and  Marlowe's  Dr.  Faustus,  316,  317  ; 
and  the  Faust  legend,  319  ;  iu  botany, 
320 ;  his  composition  of  Faust,  320, 
321, 328, 329 ;  and  the  genetic  method, 
339  ;  his  physiology,  339  ;  and  bot- 
any, 340;  literary  metamorphosis  of, 
340,  341  ;  his  completion  of  Meister, 
341 ;  evolution  of  Faust,  342-344 ; 
his  women ,  345-367  ;  his  mother,  347; 
his  sister,  348 ;  his  love  affairs,  346- 
352  ;  his  female  characters,  353,  354- 
365;  his  imagination,  363;  his  mar- 
riage, 363,  364  ;  his  sense  of  beauty, 
365  ;  of  the  pleasurable,  366 ;  light- 
diffusing,  366  ;  last  scene  of  his  life, 
367 ;  his  study  of  Gnosticism,  386 , 
and  the  alchemists,  385 ,  unpublished 
letters  of,  vii,  xi-xiii ;  MSS.  of,  in  the 
Goethe  Archives,  vii-xi ,  Diaries  of, 
in  the  Goethe  Archives,  viii,  xiii, 
xiv ;  Portraits  of,  xiv ;  Ranch's 
bust  of,  xiv ;  bibliography  of,  xiv- 
xxii. 


INDEX. 


451 


Goethe,  'WaUher  von,  last  descendant 
of  the  poet,  vi ;  his  will,  vi. 

Goethe  Jahrbuch,  vil. 

Goethe  Society  and  the  Goethe  Archives, 
vi-xiv  ;  officers  of,  vii ;  objects  of,  vii. 

Goldsmith's  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  read  by 
Goethe,  168. 

Gospel  of  John,  400. 

Gott  und  die  Bajadere,  Der,  360. 

Gott  und  Welt,  29,  95. 

Gotfcsched,  mentioned  by  Goethe,  6. 

Gotz  von  Berlichingen,  (1771,)  viii,  88, 
80,  121,  158,  leS,  191,  200,  307-310, 
318,  345,  356  ;  despised  by  Frederic 
the  Great,  159  ;  translated  by  Sir  Wal- 
ter Scott,  168,  204  ;  quoted,  309,  310  ; 
criticised  by  Mr.  Partridge,  200-205  ; 
child  life  in,  307-310. 

Greek  literature,  160, 165. 

Greeks,  their  conception  of  God,  69-72  ; 
of  tragedy,  183. 

Grimm,  Dr.  Herman,  24,  226,  228,  233, 
285,  384. 


HAMLET,  112,  316,  378. 
Handel,  15T,  158. 

Harrington,  John,  quoted,  76. 

Harris,  Prof.  W.  T.,  essay  on  Faust, 
xxii,  368  ;  on  Wilhelm  Meister,  xxiii. 

Hayward's  Faust,  173. 

Hebrews,  their  conception  of  God,  68- 
72. 

Hedge,  Dr.  F.  H. ,  251 ;  essay  on  Das 
Marchen,  xxii,  135-156. 

Hegel,  252,  281,325,327. 

Heine,  (the  poet,)  22. 

Helena,  112, 126 ;  quoted,  115. 

Herder,  8-10 ;  at  Strassburg,  9, 180  ;  mo- 
rose, 121 ;  criticises  Goethe,  180. 

Hermann  und  Dorothea,  112,  242. 

Hewett,  Prof. ,  v  ;  his  account  of  the 
new-found  Goethe  MSS. ,  vi-xiv. 

Holy  Roman  Empire,  136, 137, 138, 144, 
427. 

Homer,  Goethe's  enthusiasm  for,  ix ; 
Odyssey  cited,  82 ;  mentioned  by 
Frederick,  157 ;  Iliad  picked  to  pieces 
by  German  critics,  334;  compared 
with  Dante  and  Shakespeare,  369, 
373-375. 


Homunculus,  in  Faust,  423,  425. 

Horen,  Die,  135. 

Howe,     Mrs.     Julia    Ward,    essay    on 

Goethe's  women,  xxiii,  345-367. 
Howells,  W.  D.,  his  women,  352. 
Humboldt,  W.  von,  Goethe  to,  314, 384. 
Hume,  David,  382, 


ICELAND,  serpents  in,  157. 
Ignorance,   Popular,  the  Giant  in 

Das  Marchen,  143-148. 
Indenture,  Meister's,  quoted,  107. 
Inferno  of  Dante,  110,  377. 
Iphigenia  in  Tauris,  ix,  181,  191,  200, 

207  ;  quoted,  181-183 ;  discussed,  by 

Mr.  Sanborn,  183;   analyzed  by  Mr. 

Partridge,   209,   210,   211  ;    Goethe's 

most  finished  drama,  211. 


JACOBI,  26 ;   letter  to,  from  Goethe, 
96. 
James,  Henry,  his  women,  352. 
Job,  the  Uzzian,  173. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  quoted,  187. 
Jonson,  Ben,  describes  Shakespeare,  177. 
Jordan,   letter  to,  from  Frederick  the 

Great,  166. 
Julius  Coesar,  quoted,  129,  376. 
Jung  Stilling,  quoted,  120. 

KANT,  IMMANUEL,  123,  166,  380- 
383. 
Kant,  (unknown  preacher,)  166. 
Karl,  in  Gotz,  308-310. 
Keats  and  Goethe,  anecdote  of,  61. 
Kings,  the  Four,  in  Das  Marchen,  138, 

143-145, 153-156. 
Klettenberg,  Fraulein  von, 5, 123,  358. 
Klopstock,  22. 

Kouigsberg,  Frederic  the  Great  at,  166. 
Korner,  the  poet,  9, 108. 


LANDOR,    W.    S.,    not    known  by 
Goethe,    187,   188  ;    epigiam   on 
himself,  188. 
Leipzig,  Goethe  at,  6-8. 
Lenz,  317. 


452 


INDEX. 


Lessing,  26. 

Levezow,  Fr'aulein  von,  352. 

Lewes,  G.  H.,  biographer  of  Goethe,  352  ; 
quoted,  2G5,  348,  351,  352,  413. 

Liberal  Ideas  ia  Germany,  Will-o'-the- 
Wisps  in  Das  Marchen,  138,  140,  142, 
143. 

Lili  (Schonemann),  xii,  51,  121,  348,  350. 

Lili's  Menagerie,  348. 

Loeper,  quoted,  313,  314,  324. 

Love  in  the  English  Poets,  167 ;  in 
Goethe's  experience,  11, 167,180,  240- 
243,  348  seq. ;  in  the  Elective  Affin- 
ities, 280-282  ;  infinite  character  of, 
281 ;  in  Faust,  411,  414,  418. 

Lynceus,  126. 


MACARIA  in  Wilhelm  Meister,  47, 
2S8,  350,  359. 

Macbeth,  27. 

Macrocosm,  in  Faust,  387. 

Marchen,  Das,  Dr.  Hedge's  essay  on, 
135-156 ;  his  introduction,  135-138  ; 
printed  in  Die  Horen  (1795),  135; 
a  riddle,  135 ;  Carlyle  and  Baumgart 
the  chief  expositors  of,  135,  136 ; 
shows  the  patriotism  of  Goethe,  137, 
138 ;  expounded  and  commented  on 
by  Dr.  Hedge,  139-156. 

Margaret,  in  Faust,  48,  93,  94, 112,  224, 
354-356,  400-420. 

Mariana,  237,  353. 

Marianus,  Doctor,  220,  443. 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  his  Dr.  Faustus, 
164,  184,  185,  316. 

Marriage,  in  the  Elective  Affinities,  282 ; 
ofGoethe,  351,  363. 

Marvell,  Andrew,  the  poet,  163, 

Meissner,  quoted,  185. 

Meister,  Wilhelm,  viii,  107,  112,  163, 
237,  253,  295,  345,  346,  353,  357, 
378  ;  quoted,  95,  201,  287,  288  ;  child 
life  in,  295-307 ;  completion  of,  341, 
342. 

Menzel,  quoted,  137. 

Mephistopheles,  his  modem  character, 
111 ;  Webster  an  American  Mephis- 
topheles, 174  ;  his  paper  money,  244  ; 
genesis  of,  337,  838;  his  spirit  of 
negation,  392 ;  his  part  in  the  Mar- 


garet episode,  411,  415,  417,  419,  421 ; 
his  journey  with  Faust,  417-423;  his 
true  character,  423 ;  his  conduct  in 
the  Second  Part,  426,  431,  435,  410. 

Metaphysics,  of  Goethe,  113 ;  of  Schil- 
ler, 106. 

Microcosm,  in  Faust,  394. 

Miguon,  224,  237,  301,  303-307,  357, 
358  ;  her  death-song  quoted,  125, 126 ; 
her  father,  302. 

Milton,  compared  with  Goethe,  110; 
little  read  by  Goethe,  185 ;  discussed 
by  Goethe,  185-187 ;  compared  with 
Byron,  187. 

Mittler  in  Elective  Affinities,  266,  267, 
277-279. 

Modern  Women,  cited,  358. 

Mothers,  The,  in  Goethe's  Faust,  245- 
247,  347,  433,  434. 

Motivation,  in  the  drama,  190,  191, 
193,  194. 

Muse,  The,  171. 

Music,  power  of,  306,  307. 


NANNY,  in  Elective  Affinities,  270. 
Napoleon  on  Goethe,  108. 
Naturliche  Tochter,  238  ;  quoted,  239. 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  114,  165. 
Novel,  Analysis  of  the,  251-254. 


OESER,  Goethe's  letter  to,  6,  7. 
Offenbach,  quoted,  349. 
Ophelia,  in  Hamlet,  112,  234. 
Oriental  literature,  tasted  by  Goethe, 

165. 
Orpheus,  873. 
Othello,  177, 183. 
Ottilie,  in  Elective  Affinities,  122,  234- 

236,  262-266,  267-271,  273-279,  285- 

286,  304. 
Ovid,  180. 


PAGANISM  of  Goethe,  96-99. 
Pantheism :  lectures  on,  at  the 
Concord  School  of  Philosophy,  in 
1855,  xxiii ;  explained  by  C.  E.  Plump- 
tre,  25  ;  of  Goethe,  121, 413 ;  of  Faust, 
388. 


INDEX. 


45a 


Paradise,  of  Dante,  110,  377. 

Parker,  Theodore,  quoted,  231. 

Partridge,  W.  0.,  essay  on  Goethe's 
plays,  xxiii,  189-217. 

Pater  ^staticus,  411 ;  Pater  Profundus, 
442;  Pater  Seraphieus  (St.  Francis), 
442 ;  with  Doctor  Mariauus,  443. 

Philina,  123,  224,  237,  .353. 

Philosophy,  of  Descartes,  100  ;  of  Kant, 
390;  of  Schiller,  109,166. 

Pitt,  William,  (Lord  Chatham,)  and  his 
son,  167. 

Plato  compared  with  Goethe,  161; 
quoted,  293;  his  ideas,  433. 

Playwright,  Goethe  as,  189;  the  suc- 
cessful, 189,  190. 

Plutarch  and  Plato,  433. 

Plutus,  in  Faust,  430. 

Polarity  in  nature,  230. 

Polycrates,  the  ring  of,  162. 

Prometheus,  of  ^schylus,  82,  92;  of 
Goethe,  78,  81,  88-92. 

Prooemion,  quoted,  26. 

Purgatory,  of  Dante,  110, 377. 


RACINE,  mentioned,  159,  434. 
Religion:    of  early  races,  68-71; 
of  Goethe,  292,  203,  413,  414,  445. 

Riese,  Johann  Jacob,  letter    to,   from 
Goethe,  30,  32. 

Robbers,  Schiller's,  112, 160. 

Robinson,  H.  Crabbe,  quoted,  185-187  ; 
and  Goethe,  185. 

Roman  Elegies  of  Goethe,  180,  351. 

Rome,  Goethe  visits,  183. 

Rosenkranz,  his  criticism  on  the  Elec- 
tive Affinities,  285  ;  quoted,  2S7. 

Roussean's  Heloise,  357;  his  Emile,  and 
Contrat  Social,  381;  his  prose,  10, 383. 


SAMSON    AGONISTES,    (Milton's, 
181, 185, 186, 18T. 
Sanborn,  F.  B.,  essay  on  Goethe,  xxiii, 
157-188 ;    quotes     Alcott,     172-176 ; 
Basse,   179;    Donne,  167;    Emerson, 
170,  172  ;    Frederic  the  Great,  158. 
166  ;    Thoreau,  168. 
Satan  of  Milton,  111 ;  of  Goethe,  173. 
Schelling  and  Faust,  325,  326. 


Schiller  (the  poet),  contrasted  with 
Goethe,  107,  108,  109,  111,  118,  123, 
124, 128-134  ;  remark  to  Goethe,  113  ; 
his  virtues  and  vices,  118,  121,  180  ; 
and  Hume,  133;  and  Frederic  the 
Great,  160. 

Schouborn,  letter  to,  from  Goethe,  33. 

School  of  Philosophy,  Concord,  Mass., 
T.  ;  list  of  lectures  and  lecturers  at,  in 
1885,  xxii-xxiii ;  in  1886,  xxiv. 

Science,  the  Old  Man  with  the  Lamp  in 
Das  Mirchen,  138,  155-147,  iu2-155. 

Scientific  investigations  of  Goethe,  46, 
60,  62,  351. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  translates  Gotz  von 
Berlichingen,  in  1799, 168,  204. 

Self-Culture  defined,  37-40. 

Sessenheim,  Goethe  at,  2,  13. 

Sex  in  nature,  230-232  ;  in  Goethe,  247, 
248. 

Shakespeare,  William,  read  by  Goethe, 
120,  130,  192,  202;  compared  with 
Goethe,  44, 48, 112, 161, 177, 368,  378  ; 
mentioned  by  Goethe,  112;  quoted, 
129, 150,  376  ;  described  by  Ben  Jon- 
son,  177  ;  eulogized  by  Basse,  179. 

Sherman,  Caroline  K., essay  on  Goethe, 
xxiii,  290-312  ;  mentioned,  285. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  163, 178. 

Snider,  D.  J.,  essay  on  Faust,  xxiii, 
313-344  ;  his  exposition  of  the  legend 
of  Faust,  18i. 

Solger  criticises  the  Elective  Affinities, 
259,  267,  268,  269,  285. 

Soret,  quoted,  256. 

Spinoza,  read  by  Goethe,  24  ;  his  Ethics, 
24-30  ;  his  pantheism,  121. 

Sterling,  John,  quoted,  116. 

Stilling,  Jung,  quoted,  120. 
Strassburg,  Goethe  at,  8, 180. 


ri-lANTALUS,  181. 

-L     Tasso,  of  Goethe,  viii,  188,  200, 

236 ;  analyzed  by  Mr.  Partridge,  211- 

213. 
Taylor,  Bayard,  his  translation  of  Faust 

quoted,  218. 
Tell,  William,  Schiller's,  112. 
Tennyson,  his    "Higher  Pantheism," 

25;  quoted,  241. 


454 


INDEX. 


Thackeray,  W.  M.,  his  women,  352. 

Theresa,  224. 

Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  163. 

Titanism  of  Goethe,  68-106,  338,  339 ; 

the  term  explained,  68,  69,  76. 
Titans,  the,  69, 182. 

VENERATION,  in  education,  300. 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  Goldsmith's, 
read  by  Goethe,  168. 
Virgil,  mentioned,  159, 160. 
Voltaire,  10, 159. 
Vulpius,  Christiane,  350,  351. 


WAGNER,     in    Faust,    359,    395, 
398. 
■Wallenstein,113. 
Webster,  Daniel,  118, 133,  174. 


Weimar,  Goethe  at,  185;   archives  at, 

Ti-xiv. 
Werther,  Sorrows  of,  27-29,   121,   159, 

172 ;  quoted,  29. 
White,  Prof.  H.  S.,  his  essay  on  Goethe 

xxii,  1-36. 
Wjeland,  (the  poet,)  7. 
Woman,  treated  by  Goethe,  49-52,166, 

180,  218-250,  345-367;    satirists  of, 

252. 
Wordsworth,  WiUiam,  119,  163,  178; 

quoted,  223. 


^OUTH  of  Goethe,  1-36,  291. 


ZELTER,   Goethe  to,  186,  187,  222, 
314. 


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